


The Flame-Witch and Deadshot

by TheFledglingDM



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alchemist Riza Hawkeye, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Ishbal | Ishval, Ishval Civil War, Multi, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Role Swap AU, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Sniper Roy Mustang, Women in the Military, let's really tap into those themes of issues with father figures yeah?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:47:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 73,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24312241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFledglingDM/pseuds/TheFledglingDM
Summary: They call heralchemist, they call herprodigy, they call herthe Terror of Ishval, the Hero of Ishval. They call this woman with fire in her eyes and soul and hands awitch. They admire her and fear her and love her and hate her.In the crosshairs, he only sees a woman who has never known warmth._A FMAB role reversal AU.
Relationships: Gracia Hughes/Maes Hughes, Maes Hughes & Roy Mustang, Rebecca Catalina & Riza Hawkeye, Rebecca Catalina/Jean Havoc, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 144
Kudos: 224





	1. Chapter 1

## 

chapter one.

The Ishvalan sun beat down on her.

There was no cover in sight. No crumbling buildings, no trees, not so much as a cloud to break up the vast blue sky. The stone was hot enough to burn the soles of her feet through her boots. She sweltered in the heavy blue wool of her uniform jacket. Under the thick material she felt sweat pooling under her arms and in the small of her back. The blowing sand stuck to her neck and face. She did not bother trying to wipe it away; if it was there now, perhaps the grime would protect her from the sun and wind. The smoke and soot.

She stood atop the cliff face and surveyed the block below her. White stone buildings with cheerful, red stucco roofs. Colorful umbrellas, bright pink and yellow flowers in their beds, meticulously-tended green gardens with their hardy shoots. A residential district.

It was silent as a ghost town. Perhaps the residents had received warnings. That was for the intelligence officers to sort out.

She reached into her inner breast pocket and removed her watch. For a moment, the sun shone blindingly over its silver cover embossed with the roaring lion. She flipped it open. _11:59._

She watched the seconds tick by dispassionately. _Forty-five. Forty-six. Forty-seven. Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fifty. Fifty-one. Fifty-two._

At fifty-five, she snapped the watch closed.

At fifty-seven, she tugged her pristine white gloves over her wrists. Supple, leathery cloth, stark red embroidery. Like blood. Like flame.

At twelve o’clock exactly, Riza Hawkeye, the Flame Alchemist, snapped her fingers, and the Ishvalan village was blown off the map.

~

Whispers followed her around the camp when she returned that night. The sun was setting in the west at last, painting the sky a riot of red, golden yellow, pink, violet, navy. The air smelled of hot sand and sweat and smoke and pork. There hadn’t been fresh meat sent to the front lines for weeks.

_There she is, there’s the Flame-Witch, she’s destroyed a dozen towns now and hasn’t so much as batted an eyelash -_

_Don’t call her that, you want her to set you on fire next?_

_Three hour drive out, three hour drive back, and she didn’t say so much as a word all day. Is she a mute? Does she just think she’s that much better than us? Fucking State Alchemists -_

_That’s her? She looks like a kid, she can’t be more than twenty -_

Riza kept her expression placid. Her father’s voice echoed in her head: _Other people, Riza, they’ll never understand you. People like them will never understand people like us. The common man fears what he cannot understand. To them, you will always be different._

She saluted the guards standing outside the tent that she was seeking and entered.

“General Grand, sir,” She said. Her left hand stayed still at her side, her right swinging up into a textbook-perfect salute. “State Alchemist Hawkeye, reporting.”

General Grand looked up from whatever maps he was pouring over. His face was tanned a dark brown from the sun, his mustache carefully tended despite their lackluster facilities. He rose to his full height and returned her salute. “At ease, Flame. Report?”

Riza dropped her hand and clenched her arms behind her, folding over the small of her back. “Mission complete, General. Ishvalan town of Ohmud decimated. Fields and irrigation systems destroyed.”

“Casualties?”

“None on our side, General.” Riza knew who this man really cared about. Whatever made him look good to the brass in Central.

“That’s what I like to hear,” General Grand said. He smiled down at her with a touch more familiarity than she was comfortable with. “You’ve done excellent work since joining us at the front, Major.”

“I’m simply following orders, General,” Riza said. She kept her gaze focused dead ahead of her, as if there were something particularly interesting about the dirty beige tarp that made up the tent wall. “Have you my next assignment?”

“Just back from a mission, and already asking after the next! A woman after my own heart.” General Grand laughed. Riza did not. He went on, “And yes, I do. You are being assigned with a team to move to the south and exterminate a particularly irritating rebel stronghold. It’s a small city. Mellouja.”

Riza wracked her brain, drawing up a mental picture of the map in her tent. South meant closer to the desert, farther away from the plains and green hills of eastern Amestris. It boasted little in the way of infrastructure, and it was too arid to truly support industrial agriculture. It was two hundred miles from the capital, which at the very least boasted the political and cultural center of the country. So far as she knew, Mellouja had nothing to interest the Amestrian army but people fleeing it.

Riza wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse. There was a niggling feeling in the back of her mind, something churning in her stomach. She squashed it down. 

_You are my prodigy, my proudest achievement,_ her father’s voice echoed in her head. _You cannot shy away from greatness._

“When do we ship out?” Riza asked.

“Tomorrow, 0600 hours. Given the roads, it will be a two day trip. You are to begin at noon sharp on day three.” General Grand smiled wide. “By sunset that night, we will defeat these whelps’ last pathetic stand.”

 _Bragging is unseemly,_ her father had told her once. _Only those who have something to prove or something to fear resort to such theatrics. Keep your cards close, and your emotions closer._

“Am I dismissed, General?” Riza asked.

“Yes, get ready for tomorrow,” General Grand said. “There should be food in the mess hall for stragglers coming in from Ohmud.”

“General, sir,” Riza said. She clicked her heels and saluted formally before taking her leave.

The sun was lower now, and with the loss of its direct rays, the temperature was dropping rapidly. Wind that brought blistering heat only hours before now chilled her sweat-soaked skin. She went to her tent - a tiny, shabby little thing, but it was hers and hers alone. One of the perks of being a State Alchemist. She collected a fresh set of clothes and went to use the showers. The water was hotter than she would have preferred, given the tanks that sat outside all day, and the pressure left _much_ to be desired, but she was granted a few sand-free minutes, which was all she cared for.

She peeked outside the shower stall to make sure she was alone here in the women’s section. Not that anyone here would understand the tattoo on her back - the Alchemists were such a notorious boys’ club. Riza was an anomaly not only for her youth, but for her gender. She was the first female State Alchemist in years. Unless any of the cadets or privates around here knew how to parse alchemical arrays in a quarter second from her bare skin, Riza was quite safe from prying eyes.

 _You must protect this array with your life, Riza,_ her father had told her. He'd dipped the needle back into the scarlet ink and brought it back to her skin. _This is the most powerful alchemy yet created. My magnum opus. The number of people who will want it...you must always be vigilant. You must beware who you trust._

Riza almost said “yes, father” aloud. Biting her lip and feeling foolish, she quickly dried off and put on her sleep clothes, depositing her uniform in the laundry bin for the lower cadets to take care of and return to her. Her night clothes were much more comfortable than her uniform - a light, cotton shirt and long pants that she tucked into her combat boots. Her silver Alchemist watch made its way into her back pocket, its other end clasped to her belt loop.

The mess hall - to be generous about the enormous, open-air tent - was full of chatter and laughter. People ate, drank, gambled at cards and clustered around a makeshift dartboard. Riza did not speak to any of them, and none of them tried to speak to her as she walked to the line for dinner. Tonight was some kind of stew, potatoes and carrots and something that _might_ have been dried meat and rice, and bread, and a slightly mealy apple. Carb-rich, because little else traveled or stored well in this heat.

“Would you like your beer ration?” The cook asked across from her. Riza shrugged with one shoulder.

“I’m alright.”

“No freaking way,” piped up a sudden voice on her left. Riza glanced aside and saw a pretty woman her age. Her long hair was a rich, chestnut brown, her eyes nearly black. She beamed up at Riza. “If you don’t want it, can I have it?”

Riza blinked, her mind going blank. “Um -”

She leaned towards Riza, grinning. “Pretty please?”

Riza wanted to ask questions - _what happened to yours? Who are you? What do you want?_ \- but there was a line, and she was hungry, so she just nodded. 

The woman let out a cheer. “ _Yes!_ You are the best. Thank you!”

“Sure,” Riza murmured. People were looking at them, heads turning to the noise. It made the skin on the back of Riza’s neck go hot and tight and itchy. She ducked her head down and went to find an empty table.

She finally found one on the far side of the room and sat down to eat. The stew was surprisingly decent for once - the cook had apparently remembered such luxuries as salt and pepper. The bread was stale in the crust but soft enough on the inside. The water was cool, if slightly metallic. She still ate like she was home - elbows tucked in, back straight, head bowed. Not speaking unless spoken to.

“Oh, hey! There you are!”

Riza’s head jerked up. The dark-haired woman from the mess line was standing there, her tray in one hand and her beer ration in another. Without further fanfare, she dropped into the bench across from Riza. She raised her mug in Riza’s direction.

“Thanks again for this! We’ve been out in the field for two weeks, haven’t had a decent meal or drink in that whole time. Or a shower. I can’t wait to get out of this desert,” the woman said. She ate a big spoonful of her stew and said, with her mouth full, “Oh, that is _so good._ Which is really how we know it’s the end of the world, eh, when bruised apples and a dash of salt taste heaven-sent.”

Riza simply stared as this woman went on her full tangent, barely stopping for breath. When she finally went silent, Riza took a few beats too long to realize the woman was waiting for her to speak.

“Who are you?” Riza asked.

The woman grinned and held out her hand across the table. “Sergeant Rebecca Catalina, third division! I handle our squad’s munitions and I’m damn good with a gun. And I’m the driver.” She leaned forward on her elbows. “What about you?”

Riza’s heart was pounding in her throat. Rebecca seemed nice - no, _friendly,_ with an open face and guileless eyes. But no one had stopped to chit chat with Riza Hawkeye since she came here two months ago. She took her meals alone, slept alone, worked alone. She went where she was ordered to and so hadn’t had the time to form bonds in any one regiment before she was shuffled off again. She had not yet met any of the other State Alchemists deployed in Ishval, save for General Grand.

Her father’s warnings to be wary, not to trust too quickly, not to show her hand, not to be too open, echoed in her head. To buy time, Riza swallowed her food and dabbed at her mouth with her napkin.

“Riza,” She said softly. “State Alchemist Riza Hawkeye.”

She watched as the pieces fell together in this Rebecca woman’s head - a young woman, sitting alone, silver chain swaying from her hip, smelling like smoke and death despite her shower. A woman who, like Rebecca, looked far too young to be in this war.

She knew Rebecca had heard the rumors and the names they called her - _the Flame Alchemist, youngest State Alchemist in history, first female State Alchemist in over two decades. She roasts civilians alive. Some say she eats them. She’s so cold because her flames burn so hot. Her expression never changes. She’s barely human, she’s a witch, she’s a bitch._

Rebecca beamed at her. “It’s so nice to meet you!”

Riza blinked. She was fairly sure the synapses in her brain had stopped firing altogether. But Rebecca barreled on, completely missing or altogether ignoring Riza’s surprise: “My God, I think you’re one of the only other women I’ve met out here? There were seven of us - _seven!_ \- in my academy class, and we didn’t even all graduate! Two dropped out. And then they shipped us out here, and we’ve all been separated. I haven’t heard anything.” Something like a shadow crossed her face, but then she breezed on, “How long have you been out here? Where are you from? Where are you going next? I hear you make flames with a snap of your fingers, is that true?”

“I - I - um, I -” Riza tried to speak, taken aback and overwhelmed by the questions and talking. Absurdly, she felt as if she was about to get in trouble for something - as if her father was going to appear in a burst of smoke and scream at her to focus on her studies and chemical formulas, asking if she was a dolt because she had misbalanced her carbons. _Weak, unfocused, you need to focus! Your emotions are everywhere, you must center them! And speak clearly, be articulate! You are a Hawkeye, not some village paver! Better, you must be better!_

“I’m sorry.”

Riza blinked out of her fugue. Rebecca was sitting farther back now, giving her space. Her expression shuttered, and Riza felt a mix of relief and guilt. Rebecca chuckled softly. “I didn’t mean to come on so strong there. I just - it’s such a boys’ club here, and I haven’t met another female officer since I got out here. But it’s not your job to shoulder my lonely ass, on top of everything else you State Alchemists are responsible for.”

 _Weak._ Riza heard her father’s voice echo in her head, even beyond the grave. _So open, her vulnerabilities and insecurities there for all to see. So easy to take advantage of. She’s right, it’s not your responsibility to comfort her. You are an alchemist of the kind she could never fathom._

Riza swallowed the bile her father had poured into her head. _He’s dead,_ she reminded herself. _He’s dead and you’re here._

“It’s alright,” Riza said softly. “It’s not you. It’s just. I’m not...good at this.”

Rebecca tilted her head. A loose curl of dark hair swung over her shoulder. “Good at what?”

_Talking. Making friends. Being vulnerable._

“Talking about the war,” Riza said.

“Right, of course!” Rebecca cried. She held up a hand to her forehead. “Because of the -” _because of the genocidal extermination you're responsible for perpetrating_ “-the thing, yeah, I imagine you wouldn’t want to talk about that.”

Riza nodded as a response. Her spoon scraped loudly against the tin bottom of the bowl. She flinched against the sound. Rebecca’s eyes flicked between the spoon and Riza’s carefully expressionless face. Then she smiled, leaned her elbows back on the table, and asked, “Where are you from, Riza?”

“The west,” Riza said vaguely. “You?”

“Central. Born and raised. Farthest from home I’ve been. When did you get out here?”

“Two months ago,” Riza answered. “First in Siran, then a week or so in Barhuna, and then -”

Rebecca laughed and waved a hand. “I get it, I get it. You get around. Well-traveled women, eh? I hear that’s very attractive to these dolts.”

For a moment, Riza was utterly confused. Rebecca used her eyes to indicate the group of soldiers clustered around the dartboard. They were by far the loudest group here, something definitely facilitated by their beer rations and what looked like a bottle of something they had _liberated_ from an abandoned home. Distantly, she heard -

“‘C’mon, Deadshot, I know you can’t make it with three darts -”

“I told you not to use that, Hughes, it’s so fucking stupid.”

“I’ll stop if you get three bull’s eyes in one throw.”

“Oh, you’re _on_.”

Riza finally cottoned on to Rebecca’s insinuations. “Oh, no,” She said quickly. “It’s not - I - I’m focusing on the job.”

“So are we all,” Rebecca said sagely. She sipped her beer and looked thoughtfully around the room. “It’s nice to think of something else, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Helps me remember that I can feel anything else.”

Riza wondered how that felt. To find comfort in distraction, to _revel_ in it. There was nothing more horrifying to Riza than the idea of losing control.

“I don’t know much about that,” Riza said slowly, “But I was under the impression it was supposed to last longer than a few minutes.”

Rebecca blinked, looking surprised, and then she threw back her head and laughed. It was a cheerful, unhindered laugh, echoing in the tent and turning heads towards their table. Riza’s neck went hot again and she ducked her head to stave off the attention.

“Catalina?” The group of soldiers near the dartboard were suddenly calling. When they caught sight of Riza’s dinner mate, one of the soldiers approached the table.

“Hey, Catalina, there you are,” he said. He glanced over Rebecca’s shoulder and met Riza’s eye. “Oh, hey there! Is Catalina talking your ear off?”

“I’m getting away from you, Hughes,” Rebecca retorted. She tore off a hunk of her bread and dipped it into her soup. She sent Riza a conspiratorial wink. In a stage whisper, she added, “A word of advice: _don’t_ get him started on his sweetheart.”

“I heard that!” Hughes said. His tone sounded offended, which briefly put Riza on guard, but when he looked at her he was smiling. Hughes was a few years older than she and Rebecca, with square, slightly crooked glasses and kind green eyes. His cheeks were flushed red from the alcohol. “Maes Hughes, at your service, miss…?”

Riza hesitated, but she was outnumbered here. “Hawkeye.”

“Hawkeye.” He _must_ have known who she was, but his expression didn’t change at all. “So nice to meet you. _Speaking_ of my sweetheart, I just got a letter from her today! Her name is Gracia, she’s studying to be a nurse! She has the most beautiful eyes, and she’s so kind, and she has amazing penmanship! And she doesn’t mock me for writing so quickly I blot the ink. And look!” And then this strange Hughes man pulled a letter from his chest pocket and presented it to Riza. The bottom of the letter featured a beautifully-crafted signature of _yours, Gracia_ and a lipstick kiss in soft pink. “She sent me her love! And -”

“God, Hughes, we _get it_ ,” Rebecca interrupted, rolling her eyes. “Gracia’s cleverer than either of us and has snatched up someone half-way decent without even needing to come out here. You’re gonna scare Ri off before we head out tomorrow.”

“Ri?” Riza repeated, confused. Then, more confused, she said, “Tomorrow?”

“Yeah!” Rebecca said cheerfully. “Shoot, that’s what I was forgetting - our regiment is tasked with providing your backup and security for Mellouja. I wanted to say hello.”

 _And more than that,_ Riza thought but didn’t say. She wasn’t sure _what_ to say. She felt like her throat had closed up, not letting any words pass. “I see.”

“Yeah, and I wanted you to meet the others, but,” Rebecca waved a hand behind her, indicating the group around the dartboard as they erupted into yells and cheers. Deadshot, it appeared, had successfully nailed three bull’s eyes after all. Hughes swore colorfully and started digging in his pockets for the cenz he now owed. Rebecca raised her eyebrows at Riza like this exchange spoke for itself.

It was an out, Riza realized. An escape from needing to meet these people, even if it was just a brief reprieve. She was partially angry at herself for being so transparent, and grateful that Rebecca had been so astute.

“I should go to bed,” Riza said abruptly. “I will see you tomorrow.”

She stood, pushing her bench back and lifting her tray to her chest. A little shyly, and very awkwardly, she said to Rebecca, “Thank you.”

Rebecca Catalina sent her a wink. “See you in the morning! Goodnight.”

Riza turned the exchange over and over in her head as she lay in her little cot that night. It took some time to sort through the emotions swirling through her head, but at last she realized that she was both looking forward to and dreading meeting the rest of the Third Regiment in the morning. The latter emotion was expected, but the former was new. Rebecca seemed kind enough - indeed, she was the friendliest face Riza had yet seen out here. Hughes wore his emotions all over his face in a way her father would have disdained with every ounce of his being, but Riza found his earnestness oddly charming. Perhaps the rest of the regiment was like them? Or perhaps Rebecca and Hughes were the odd ones out, much like how Riza felt?

Or, perhaps their kindness and welcoming demeanors were an act. Perhaps Rebecca had just wanted an extra beer ration. Perhaps Hughes had bet that he couldn’t spend five minutes with the Flame Alchemist and not be charred alive. Perhaps they pitied her, this odd woman sitting by herself and staying apart from the rest. Perhaps they were making fun of her or investigating her, trying to see if the Flame Witch was as cold and detached as the rumors said. Perhaps they wanted to see if she was a danger to them and their regiment or mission. Perhaps their kindnesses would vanish in the morning as the new day came on.

All of those struck Riza as more likely than two soldiers simply finding a woman sitting by herself and joining her. Still, it sent an uncomfortable ache rattling through Riza’s stomach to recognize those possibilities.

She could not remember the last time someone had wished her good-night.

~

The next morning, at 0600 hours sharp, Sergeant Rebecca Catalina presented Riza with half her thermos full of fresh coffee and said that she was riding up front with her. Riza accepted this and pretended it was the rising sun shining in her eyes that was making them water.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!! idk why it doesn't let me put these on the first chapter but thank you for clicking. this is my first work in the FMAB fandom so i'm still getting a grasp on writing these characters. please enjoy!

## 

chapter 2.

Here’s the thing no one talks about, Roy mused as he lays on his stomach from his watchtower:

Sniping is _boring._

It’s hours and hours of sitting and waiting for something to happen, hoping it doesn’t, and when something _does_ happen, it’s over in less than a second.

And the cycle starts all over again.

Right now, he’s in the early stages. He’s been here for hours already, having set up his spot in the wee hours of the morning. Judging by the sun’s position, it was just after two o’clock. The Flame Alchemist was making her way through the town in a clockwise direction. Her explosions were carefully timed, and she followed their plan of attack to the letter. Roy’s afternoon was spent in the steady cycle of silence, explosion, screams, repeat.

It made him sick. This entire thing, this whole war, made him sick. The army recruiter had not told him about this. He hadn’t told Roy of the sunburn, the boredom, the way screams were somehow so much louder when there were no buildings or other noise to smother them, the way smoke stung his nose and eyes, the way his dreams echoed with the sound of his gun and the patterns of blood spatter. The spatter spelled out messages to him that he could have read, if only he got out of his high perch and faced those he killed head-on.

But Roy did not need to leave his perch to know what the blood was telling him: _as I stain the ground, so I stain your soul. You will spend your life trying to scrub me clean but I will remain, remain, remain._

Before he shipped out, Aunt Chris had asked if he wanted the family to hold a funeral for him. Roy had thought this was her attempt at a morbid joke, or a garish way to impress upon him his own mortality. But maybe she knew - of course she knew, Aunt Chris knew everything - that the boy who went to Ishval with a gun on his back would not be the man who returned.

Aunt Chris and his sisters called him the baby brother, their _Roy-boy_ , but out here he was given a new moniker: Deadshot. Roy hated it. It gave his kills something of a grand, heroic spin. He knew he was killing insurgents, protecting his fellow Amestrians (even if, sometimes, he wondered if they would return the favor, if they saw his dark hair and almond-shaped eyes, all the ways he did not belong).

His sisters would laugh themselves silly if Roy ever revealed this new name. They would know eventually, if Roy’s infamy kept growing at this exponential rate. That day would, truly, be the death knell of his pride.

Aunt Chris would just take a long drag of her cigarette, mulling over what she wanted to say before heralding it in with a cloud of smoke. “It’s not either-or, Roy-boy. It’s both. Killing rebels protecting their home, and protecting your fellow Amestrians. What matters is which you think about when you go to sleep at night.”

Roy thought of the rebels. He thought of a once beautiful nation, a desert oasis, destroyed. He thought of the buildings destroyed, centuries of history and culture lost, hundreds killed, thousands displaced. He thought of himself, the orphan, using his gun to make more.

The tower shuddered beneath him as an explosion rattled the earth. A plume of fire shuddered to life, burping out ash and smoke and soot. By Roy’s calculation, the Flame Alchemist was two hundred yards north-northeast of him. It seemed her steady movement through the city was at last arriving at his hub of city blocks. The air stung his nose, but Roy heard no screams. It appeared the building she had torched was either empty, or anyone inside had been killed before they could make a sound.

Like the rest of the Third Regiment, Roy had been taken aback to learn yesterday that their orders were to escort _the_ Flame Alchemist to Mellouja. The task was simple: provide her backup, and clean up any rebels she left behind. But judging from the rumors, Roy struggled to believe they would have much to do with the latter task.

Roy hadn’t seen her since she joined their little ragtag group two days ago - she rode in Rebecca’s caravan while Roy rode with Hughes and Havoc in the other. She took her meals alone in her tent and only emerged in the mornings to rejoin Rebecca in the truck. The general consensus was that the Flame-Witch was as distant and cold as the rumors said.

(Rebecca and Hughes disagreed, they confessed quietly to Roy and Havoc that first night.

“I think she’s just so _painfully_ shy,” Rebecca had said. She looked to Hughes for confirmation.

“There’s a story there,” Hughes had agreed. His gaze had remained on the fire. “I don’t think it’s a happy one.”

Roy did not say as much aloud, but he figured there were a lot of unhappy stories going around this godforsaken desert.)

_How can she do it?_ Roy wondered for the umpteenth time. How could she calmly walk these streets and burn these people alive by the dozen? How had she come to embrace such a power? _Doesn’t she care?_

There was a figure walking down the street now, Roy saw. They moved with a steady, controlled gait, as if this were an afternoon stroll. Roy peered through his scope to get a better vantage of his first view of the Flame Alchemist.

His attention was first caught on a flash of gold - she was blonde, her hair cropped close around her head, stray spiky strands framing her round face. She was _young,_ younger even than Roy, who was second youngest in the regiment only after Catalina. Cheeks that once held the last vestiges of youth were now thinner and hollowed from the fighting, revealing strong cheekbones and her jawline. Her eyes were the color of amber, like embers burning in the grate.

A chill went down Roy’s spine. He had seen many eyes over the course of his life and since he came to Ishval - the eyes of dreamers, of sadists, of killers, of the depressed and hopeless and drunk. But her eyes were empty and emotionless.

Somehow, it was worse than the eyes of the dead.

Movement on the edge of his scope caught Roy’s eye. They caught the Flame Alchemist’s attention, too. In a moment she had moved, her standard-issue combat boots belying a lightness and agility these hiding rebels had not expected. Roy was too far away to hear the snap, but her fingers fluttered and she was brandishing a tongue of flame about her like a whip.

Roy watched, transfixed and looking for an opening, as she moved. With lithe, almost dancing footsteps, the Flame Alchemist twisted and turned and cut down the rebels that surrounded her. The flame was rigidly controlled and yet appeared effortless as she cut down one insurgent, then another, and a third. The light of the flame reflected in the sheen of her hair, in her amber eyes. For a moment, they truly looked like burning coals.

It was a beautiful, deadly dance of death.

The Flame Alchemist cut down a fourth rebel just as a fifth emerged from their hiding place just behind her. The rebel threw themselves at her.

Roy’s gunshot cracked the air.

The force of the blast threw the rebel back to land in a pathetic heap. Even from here, Roy could see the blood spreading over the sandy stones.

_As I stain the ground, so I stain your soul. You will spend your life trying to scrub me clean but I will remain._

The Flame Alchemist glanced back at the rebel laying behind her. Then, as if she had known where he was the entire time, she looked up to Roy’s perch. Her eyes met his as if she could see through his scope.

Time slowed, much the way it did when Roy prepared to pull his trigger. Except this time, he was thinking of what Rebecca and Hughes had said:

_“She’s painfully shy.”_

_“There’s a story there, and it’s not a happy one.”_

Roy knew these things, and more - that the Flame Alchemist was the youngest in history, that she earned her infamy with the strongest alchemy yet created to date.

He knew the expression in her eyes. He remembered seeing it in the eyes of his younger, newer sisters, the ones Aunt Chris had plucked from overcrowded boarding homes and dark alleys in squalid neighborhoods. The ones who slept lightly and uneasily and went still and silent when startled.

And Roy knew: the Flame Alchemist may create fire with only her hands, but she has never truly been warm.

The Flame Alchemist held his gaze for a few moments. Then she sent him a nod. It was just a short jerk of the chin, but Roy knew what she meant - _thank you._

Her uniform coat fluttered around her ankles as she walked away.

~

The Flame Alchemist was long gone. Roy knew she would be back later, picking through any last vestiges of resistance. Some other members of the Third Regiment followed a careful mile behind her, preventing any remaining rebels from reassembling for a final stand. The next few hours passed in a haze as the sun brought on the hottest part of the day. The heat made the air on the ground shimmer in the blurry, unfocused way of a mirage. It made Roy’s eyes ache if he tried to focus on the world outside his tower any longer than a few minutes. In any case, the sun left the city so prohibitively hot that Roy doubted there would be any action for the next several hours until the sun at last started to set.

What he wouldn’t give for a cloud, Roy thought. Or _rain_. He missed rain. The thunder, the smell of petrichor and damp asphalt, something to soothe his sunburned and peeling skin and chapped lips. He wished the army had considered their soldiers more when they were creating their military uniforms. So many people had suffered from dehydration or heat stroke just because of the heavy wool and dark dye of the uniforms. Really, was it too much to ask for some cotton?

Roy knew the answer was yes. The military’s focus was on winning this war and protecting its pride, rather than the well-being of the people on either side of the conflict.

He sighed and took a sip from his canteen. The water was lukewarm and tasted like metal, but it briefly soothed his parched throat.

As he lowered his canteen, a flicker of movement in the shadows caught his eye. He peered through his scope to see two figures skulking through the shadows. Roy narrowed his eyes, looking for weapons - only to see it was a young woman, not even Roy’s age, one hand clasped in the hand of the child at her side ( _her sister? She could only be_ ), the other protectively curled around her stomach. Even from here, Roy saw the telltale roundness of her belly.

_Shit._ Roy knew his orders: remove any and all threats to the military, whatever form they took. But that was a loose definition, and snipers and front-line fighters less scrupulous than Roy had taken out Ishvalans very much like these two. They argued that anyone caught in a known insurrectionist area like this one could be affiliated with the rebels, and it was safest to remove the threats before they could act.

It was a bare step away from the genocide that Hughes predicted was coming. The idea made Roy feel ill.

But those orders were nothing more than rumor, and right now Roy had a much more tangible decision in front of him. He glanced at the sky, estimating the time. The Flame Alchemist wasn’t due here for thirty minutes yet. The team that followed her had cleared out an hour ago. Roy knew there was an exit somewhere below his watchtower in the maze of buildings. He could leave his post, help them get away, and return in less than fifteen minutes if he hurried and was _very_ lucky.

_Or someone could take out the Flame Alchemist while you’re off playing hero,_ a snide voice that sounded like his academy instructors murmured in his head.

_It’s better than whatever the hell this is,_ Roy thought, and he stumbled to his feet and drew his hood over his head. The motion sent feeling returning to his front and his feet, but Roy was used to this discomfort and hurried down the stairs, trying to keep his footsteps as quiet as possible. For a moment it reminded him of the old days when he was trying to sneak out of Aunt Chris’s to meet up with a girl.

He never succeeded, but Roy couldn’t think about that now.

Roy adjusted his hood and kept to the shadows and small, twisting side alleys. He missed the advantage that height gave him, but he counted his measured steps and calculated that, yes, if he turned here, and went down this street, and turned there, he could intercept them two streets over -

They were exactly where Roy had anticipated when he rounded a corner. The two leapt back, the older woman throwing her arms around the younger in an attempt to stifle her screams.

_Yes, of course,_ Roy thought irritably at himself, cursing his carelessness. _A military man suddenly appears in the middle of their escape attempt and blocks their path._ He’d scream, too.

“It’s okay,” Roy said in his terrible, halting Ishvalan. The elder of the two scowled in confusion, trying to parse his words. He dropped lower, taking a step back to give them space and appear less threatening. “It’s okay. I want to help.” _Fuck, the word, what’s the word?_ He motioned towards Mellouja’s outer walls. “Out. Leave. To go.”

Apparently his list of synonyms did it. Comprehension dawned on the older girl’s face, even if she looked no less skeptical. Her red eyes narrowed and she held the child closer to her. From the similarity in their flat noses, the shape and shade of their red eyes, and the widow’s peaks on their hairlines, they could only be sisters.

“I want to help,” Roy repeated. “Please.”

Another moment of hesitation. At last, the elder sister nodded minutely.

Relief rushed through Roy. He nodded back. “Okay. Fast. Quiet.”

Roy led them through the streets. He found the wall, far back in an area that once might have been a residential area. The townhouses and fountains that had once populated the area were destroyed, some still burning and burping out smoke. The younger of the two girls stifled a sob into her sister’s back.

_I’m sorry,_ Roy wanted to say to them. Somehow, it sounded like the most insulting thing he could have said to them.

They rounded a corner, and -

Roy’s heart leapt up to pound in his throat. The two girls cried out in terror. The younger buried her face in her sister’s sari and burst into complete hysterics.

The Flame Alchemist stood there in the middle of the walkway, blocking their only path to the one road out of Mellouja in this sector. The setting sun lit half of her face, creating a spectacular work in illumination and shadow. Her eyes were cold, distant, but Roy could somehow feel a sense of dawning wrath from her.

She was _pissed_. And she was glaring at _him_.

It had no right to be as attractive as it was.

Her gaze flicked dispassionately away from him and to the two girls behind him. Roy felt them huddle together in terror. The elder of the two was breathing a prayer into her sister’s hair in frantic Ishvalan.

The Flame Alchemist spoke. “What are you doing?”

Her voice was a quiet alto, eerily calm and collected. Roy swallowed but stood his ground.

“I’m escorting these two out of the city. They are no threat to the military. I thought it would be quickest and safest if I escorted them myself.” A beat, before he remembered this woman - who looked the same age as the pregnant Ishvalan girl behind him - technically far outranked him. “Sir.”

A beat. The Flame Alchemist’s expression did not change.

“I see.”

She snapped her fingers. The sound was shockingly _loud_ in the tense silence. The girls screamed, and even Roy flinched. He closed his eyes against the heat, awaiting the whispering flames to lick away at his hands and face - but even louder was the sound of crushing stone and crumbling rock as the wall to their right blew away.

Roy looked to his side. The Flame Alchemist had blown a hole in the side wall large enough for the two to step through. She quirked her fingers at the two girls behind Roy. When she spoke, it was in perfect Ishvalan. She put Roy’s stumbling attempts to shame.

Whatever she said, it was curt and to the point. Hesitantly, the two Ishvalan girls moved around Roy and to the hole. To Roy’s great surprise, the Flame Alchemist removed her own canteen and a few days’ worth of rations from her pack and handed them to the two.

“ _Ishvala’lan,_ ” the Flame Alchemist said. It was the first time she had shown any kind of emotion. The words were soft but genuine. Roy recognized them as a polite, courteous goodbye that translated to _Ishvala guide you._

The girl did not look appeased, but her fierce expression softened. She returned, “ _Ishvala’lan alo_ ,” and guided her sister through the hole.

The moment they were out of sight, Roy breathed a soft sigh. This movement seemed to remind the Flame Alchemist that he was there, and she rounded on him.

“ _You_ ,” She snarled. She strode forward, clasping his loose sleeve and dragging him inside the husk of a blown-out building. She pushed him to a wall, not forcefully, but just enough so she could stalk up to him and he couldn’t get away easily.

She glanced at his shoulders. Stupidly, Roy wondered if she liked what she saw, only to remember that she was more likely looking for the bars of his rank. When she spoke, her tone once again took on that placid, even quality of tight control.

“Tell me, Staff Sergeant,” She asked. “ _What_ , exactly, you were thinking?”

“I-”

The Flame Alchemist did not let him finish. “Abandoning your post. Violating orders.” She stepped closer to him. She was shorter than he was, her eye line at level with his chin, but Roy stumbled a half-step back. His shoulders collided with the wall. The Flame Alchemist only followed him. “Give me _one_ good reason not to have you court-martialed the _second_ we’re back to base.”

Roy’s mind spun with answers. _Because it was the right thing to do. Because I couldn’t live with myself another day if I did nothing. Because I joined the army to make this nation better, but this isn’t how I thought I would do it. Because I don’t think I believe in this war or the propaganda anymore._

Instead, because Roy was a fool with a death wish, he said, “Because you helped me. Mutually assured destruction.”

The Flame Alchemist recoiled. She pursed her lips into a thin, severe line, pressing them until they were white. Roy wanted to think, _gotcha_ , except he was admittedly very afraid of and very distracted by her. He was staring into her eyes, mesmerized by their color, by her long lashes.

“You took a foolish risk.” _Right, the most powerful alchemist in the military is angry at you. Focus on that._ “And you were sloppy enough to be caught. Which means _both_ of our absences have been noticed. And when we are questioned about it, you are going to shut up and follow my lead. Is that clear, Staff Sergeant?”

Roy nodded. “Yes, sir.”

The Flame Alchemist stepped away. Roy felt the loss of her presence like stepping away from a bonfire. Was this woman really just composed of fire, and only her force of will kept it from exploding outward? She turned to leave, but before she left, Roy asked:

“Why did you help me?”

The Flame Alchemist whirled around on him. “I didn’t do it for _you_ ,” she said. It was unnerving, seeing her expressionless face and hearing her even tone and knowing that this woman was _blindingly_ angry at him. “I saw a man I neither know nor trust abandoning his post and wandering the slums with two women. I investigated.”

The implications of what she had thought hit Roy so hard he felt like he had been physically struck. Anger and shame mingled for dominance in him - _how dare she_ mixing with the recognition that there were some in the army who abused their power and exerted it over the Ishvalan citizens (and, indeed, their fellow soldiers) as they wished.

But nor was this the time to explain to this strange, beautiful woman that _no, you see, I was raised in a brothel with about a dozen sisters and even more workers coming in and out, so I have utmost respect for women and will in fact shoot the eye and hands and balls off of anyone I see trying to hurt one._

“As it was, it was too far a walk to reach the exit without our absences raising from confusion to suspicion and alarm,” The Flame Alchemist was saying, “So I made one.”

Roy turned that response over in his mind. Finally, he said, “I see. Thank you.”

The Flame Alchemist blinked. She looked...surprised. For the first time, her anger dissipated. She looked almost sheepish as she glanced at the ground.

“There isn’t anything to thank me for.” Her lip twitched, flickering in a smile like a wisp of flame, there and gone before Roy was even sure if he saw it. “Mutually assured destruction.”

The Flame Alchemist took another step back. Roy followed her, speaking before he could stop himself - “What’s your name?”

The Flame Alchemist stopped short. She turned to him again. Her brow was furrowed. “Why do you want to know? Do you really _not_ know?”

Roy shook his head. “Seems more polite to hear it from you.”

“I’m sure you’ve heard more about me than my name,” the Flame Alchemist said. Her face had again resumed that tightly controlled expression of neutrality.

Roy did not deny it. “It seems fairer to let you speak for yourself.”

Her expression did not change, and yet - Roy felt as if the air around her grew less tense. She seemed less likely to char him to a crisp or bolt when she held out a hand, saying, “State Alchemist Riza Hawkeye.”

Roy clasped her hand in his. The material of her glove was oddly heavy and cool, its texture unfamiliar against his bare, callused hands. The white fabric was pristine, and there was a red symbol embroidered on it that he couldn’t quite see from this angle. “Staff Sergeant Roy Mustang.”

The Flame Alchemist - Major Hawkeye - shook his hand once, firmly, before dropping it. It was at that moment that Roy heard the sound of approaching footsteps. There were too many moving too loudly to be anything other than their fellow Amestrian forces.

Major Hawkeye shot him a glare and reminded him under her breath to _follow her lead_. She stepped out into the street to head off the approaching forces. To Roy’s very great relief, this group of four was led by Havoc. He stopped short in front of them when he caught sight of the Flame Alchemist and Roy. Havoc shot Roy an alarmed look.

“Sergeant,” the Flame Alchemist said. Havoc’s attention snapped back to her, and he swung into a belated salute.

“Sir,” Havoc said. “We followed your route, only to find that you weren’t there. A check of the Staff Sergeant’s nest showed that he was also unaccounted for. Are you alright?”

“Quite,” the Flame Alchemist answered. “The Staff Sergeant saw signs of suspicious activity and investigated. I joined him. I fired a shot at them and they retreated deeper into the city.I’m afraid we lost them.”

She lied well, Roy realized. Straight-faced, even-toned, blatant. Roy was enough of a hooligan growing up to know that no one became so good at putting up a face without good reason. The mystique of the Flame Alchemist grew, as Roy watched her.

Roy caught Havoc’s eye over the Major’s shoulder. Roy sent him the most infinitesimal nod he could.

“Understood, sir,” Havoc said. “What are your orders?”

The Flame Alchemist took charge of this as easily as she had taken charge of Roy minutes ago. “We’ll have lost their trail by now. We complete our mission, and return to our rendezvous point at 2100 hours. I will take the lead.” She looked over her shoulder at Roy. The afternoon sun turned her hair to spun gold. “Return to your post, Staff Sergeant.”

Roy snapped his heels in a salute. “Sir.”

The Flame Alchemist walked off, her boots crunching over gravel. Havoc strolled beside Roy as he started making his way back to his perch.

“So what really happened?” Havoc asked out of the corner of his mouth. “Witch get her claws in you?”

Roy sent Havoc a look. He knew Havoc didn’t believe the ridiculous rumors any more than he did, but where Roy quietly ignored the gossip Havoc actively participated just to see how far it would go. He thought the rumors were hysterical, especially now that they had seen the Flame Alchemist and realized she was a good three years younger than they were.

Why Havoc found it comforting or amusing that a nineteen-year-old was on the front lines of this war, Roy wasn’t sure. He was like Rebecca that way, looking for a way to laugh because if he didn’t he might scream and scream and scream.

Their last few missions had been quiet, but they all felt an unspoken dread rising as the weeks wore on. Something was happening. Something was coming. Roy feared what it was and prayed it would come soon.

“Shut up, Havoc,” Roy said wearily. Havoc only shot him a grin and they split off, Roy climbing the half-dozen stories to his perch and Havoc melting into the shadows to follow the Flame Alchemist.

Roy quickly skimmed his nest when he reached the top of the climb, searching for anything odd or out of place. Everything appeared as he had left it, and the handful of sand Roy had spread over the top of the stairs after him remained untouched. Roy kicked it aside and resumed his spot on his stomach, propping himself on his elbows and once again peering at the world through a scope.

There she was: the Flame Alchemist returning to her rounds as if nothing were amiss. Were it not for the stars and bars on her shoulders or the silver pocket watch chain dangling from her hip, she might have looked like any other young woman.

As if she felt his gaze, the Flame Alchemist looked up at his perch. Roy knew there was no way she could actually see him from nearly three hundred yards away, but his stomach swooped like she was meeting his eye anyway.

And hesitantly, just a little shyly, and surprisingly mischievously, she smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! please let me know what you think?  
> you can find me on tumblr at https://notantherwritingblog.tumblr.com/


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the calm before the storm.   
> CW for alcohol mentions and memories of emotional manipulation/abuse.

## 

chapter 3.

Mellouja had fallen.

The reinforcements to prevent the rebels from regrouping and reasserting themselves in the hollowed-out city would arrive in the morning. For now, there was nothing to do except rest and wait for daylight.

The Third Regiment set up camp just outside the main entrance into the city. They made a fire of destroyed bits of furniture they had found scattered about. While the Amestrian soldiers were technically allowed to take whatever abandoned things they found as “spoils of war” - digging through the husks of houses, looting bodies - there seemed to be a code of conduct among the Third Regiment that that kind of behavior was frowned upon. With the exception of the destroyed furniture, the Regiment had only taken what food would soon spoil and some dusty bottles of liquor.

It didn’t make it better, Riza mused, but it was one way to survive. Wood for warmth, food for their bellies, alcohol to forget. 

Riza watched the regiment from the corner of her eye as she pitched her tent. They hadn’t asked her to start the flames, so someone here knew how to make a proper country bonfire. Occasionally, the wood would crack and pop, sending a shower of sparks floating high into the air. It could easily be seen from a mile around, a bright spot in the otherwise bleak night on the desert plain.

Riza could remember sitting at her library desk back home, peering out the window and watching the world outside. She had seen many bonfires like this - for barn raises, for weddings, for the birth of a child, for the harvest, for fairs and holidays, for no reason at all. 

(“Why don’t we ever go, father?” Riza had asked once. She was eight, her hands and nose pressed to the glass of the library window. If she strained her ears to listen very, _very_ hard, she could have heard the distant shouts of laughter.

“To a country bumpkin festival where they celebrate the existence of fire?” her father had scoffed. “Why would we want to go there? We’re so close to making real fire, Riza. We have more important things to do. Come away from the window.”

“Yes, father.”

“Don’t ask me to go again.”

“No, father.”

And she hadn’t.)

A sharp pain in her hand brought Riza forcefully back to the present. In her lost thoughts, the small hammer she was using to nail her tent’s stakes into the ground had slammed onto her thumb. She bit her lower lip to stop herself from making a sound, shaking out her hand. Fortunately, there were no further incidents as she put up her tent.

The inside of her tent was cool and dark. It gave her just enough privacy to roll out her sleeping mat and change her shirt to one that reeked less of smoke and body odor. She would still need to wear her sandy pants and her military jacket to stay warm in the night air, but she felt marginally better for having changed out of one sweat-soaked item of clothing. 

She looked at her watch. 9:45. Riza wanted to curl up and go to sleep, but the uncomfortable rumbling of her stomach prevented her from doing that. She almost wished she hadn’t given her emergency rations to those two women, but then she snapped herself out of it. 

_Those two are feeling their war-torn country, and you’re feeling sorry for yourself for needing to take a meal with your fellow soldiers? Get a grip,_ Riza thought to herself. Taking a deep breath, she opened the flap in the curtain and slowly made her way to the bonfire.

It was large enough that the Third Regiment was able to break up into smaller groups of three and four, talking and eating quietly in the night air. Riza took some of the meal someone had prepped over the fire and found herself hovering briefly, awkwardly in front of the flames. She searched for a familiar face, for Rebecca or Hughes or Mustang -

“Looking for Catalina?” Said a voice behind her. Riza turned, trying not to show that she was startled, to see one of the men she had spoken to earlier in the day. He was taller than she, well-built, with pale skin that was sunburned and peeling, bright blue eyes, and messy blond hair and patchy scruff. One hand was on his hip, the other holding a brown bottle with no label.

He didn’t wait for her to finish. “She’s been looking for you since she got back, sittin’ back over here with the others. C’mon.”

He spoke with a country drawl, all long syllables and dropped consonants, and it sent an odd sort of homesickness running through her. Riza didn’t say anything as she followed the man to a huddled group of people on the outer edges of the fire.

“I found her, Catalina,” the blond man said as he threw himself to the ground atop a thin, sandy blanket.

The woman cut off in the middle of what she was saying and wiggled around. Rebecca’s now-familiar face split into an increasingly familiar grin. She greeted, “Hey, there! We were wondering where you’d gotten to.”

“I was setting up my tent,” Riza said quietly. “Getting cleaned up a little. May I join you?”

It was the first time Riza had asked to join anyone in the Regiment. That fact did not seem lost on Rebecca, beamed and tapped the free space on her own blanket. “Hell yes! Pop a squat.”

Riza nodded and folded her legs under her as she lowered herself into a sitting position. She looked over the others in this group as Rebecca made the introductions.

“You remember Hughes, of course - put the _damn letter_ away, my _God_ you are insufferable - and that’s Jean Havoc, he’s super-special black ops -”

“I’m just subtle,” The blond man said. He winked at Riza. “The secret agent shit is just for my dates.”

“Gross, Havoc, it’s not like you’ll find any out here.” Rebecca bowled over him with practiced efficiency. “And this is Roy Mustang, he’s a sniper. He’s the eyes in the sky, keeps all of us safe.”

Riza tried not to show any surprise. She knew she had ordered Mustang to keep their little side-mission quiet, but it was still somehow odd to be re-introduced to a man she had met earlier that day.

As if he knew her train of thought, Mustang sent her a short nod. A playful, knowing sort of smile flickered around his mouth. His bangs were falling over his forehead, over his eyes. Riza broke their eye contact and looked back at the others.

“Thank you for your work,” she said. She swirled her spoon through her bowl, watching the way it cut lines through the mealy gruel. What was it supposed to be - oatmeal? Grits? Rice? Riza took a bite and tried not to make a face over it. How was it possible to make something so utterly bland, colorless, and tasteless?

“Bless her, Havoc, she’s trying your cooking,” Rebecca said.

“She’s braver than any of us,” Hughes said. He solemnly swept his hat off his head and held it to his chest for dramatic effect.

“Fuck _off_ ,” Havoc grumbled. He sounded annoyed, but the smile in his face and laughter in his eyes undercut the remark. He leaned towards Riza, elbows on his knees. “So the witch really does have a soft spot, eh - _YEOUCH!_ ”

Havoc cried out as the others all smacked him - Hughes his right arm, Mustang behind his back, Rebecca the top of his head. Riza watched on blankly as the others all spoke over each other:

“Don’t be a bastard, Havoc, who raised you?”

“Would it _kill_ you to show some subtlety? To think before you speak?”

“Are you trying to scare her off? She’ll never want to work with us again if you say that stupid shit -”

Riza realized her fingers were clenched around her aluminum bowl. Something was swelling in her chest, rising up her throat, applying pressure behind her eyes. Something surprisingly warm and soft and fierce, gentle in a way the flames in her hands were not.

_They’re standing up for you,_ she realized. _Who would have thought?_

_(You don’t need anyone to stand up for you. Are you a child, whining in the night? You are an adult, an alchemist, and they are the insubordinate soldiers assigned to protect you. You should teach them a lesson that you are not to be trifled with. A show of force always informs them who is in charge.)_

Riza opened her mouth to speak - and a laugh rang out.

It wasn’t loud or echoing the way Rebecca’s was. It was cracked around the edges, rusty from disuse, but a laugh nevertheless. The other four stopped their squabbling and turned to Riza as one.

“It’s okay,” Riza said, and it was an assurance to them and a revelation to her. “I know what others say about me. I think I actually appreciate you being blunt about it, rather than toeing around it.”

Havoc eyed her thoughtfully before breaking out in a grin. He looked to his fellow soldiers, saying, “See, assholes? I’m not so bad.”

“You give him _far_ too much credit,” Rebecca said, rolling her eyes. “In any case, if you’re going to try and eat his cooking, I recommend this to spice it up.”

She held out a clear bottle. Riza accepted it, swirling the heavy brown liquid in the glass. She asked, “What is it?”

“No idea. But it’s getting me good and tipsy, and I can’t taste Havoc’s cooking, so it’s getting the job done,” Rebecca said.

“Do I add it to the gruel?” Riza asked.

Rebecca, Hughes, and Havoc laughed like she had made a very funny joke. Somehow, the loudest thing to Riza was Mustang’s silence. She could feel his gaze on her profile, his astute sniper’s eyes cataloging everything he saw. It left her feeling uncomfortably seen, and she tucked her chin to let her hair sweep over her face.

“You drink it,” Rebecca explained. “Burns away the taste buds.”

“That sounds awful. Why would I want that?”

“Have you ever drank liquor before?” Rebecca asked.

“She brews her own potions,” Havoc sniggered. Hughes elbowed him in the side.

“Ah, no,” Riza said, “My father growing up was quite strict.”

“Oh, I relate,” Rebecca laughed.

Riza smiled noncommittally. She still wasn’t quite sure, but from the conversations she had overheard since coming to the front, it seemed like her father was a touch more strict than most. But she didn’t want to talk about her father (not now, and she wasn’t sure when she wanted to lift the lid on everything that she had squashed down since she left the old Hawkeye manor without bothering to lock it behind her), so Riza accepted the bottle Rebecca was holding out to her and lifted it to her lips.

And immediately spat it out.

The liquor _burned_ , stinging her throat and nose and sinuses. Havoc burst out laughing - surprised, good-natured, not mocking in the slightest, even as Riza’s cheeks burned and she rather wished he wouldn’t. To their credit, Rebecca and Hughes were much nicer about the whole thing. Rebecca was incredibly apologetic, saying, “Oh, I’m _so_ sorry, you _just_ said you’d never had alcohol and I gave you that, I wasn’t thinking!”

Hughes handed her a handkerchief to wipe her face with. Riza felt her neck going hot again from all of the attention.

“It’s - it’s fine,” She sputtered. She took a bite of her food and found that the lingering spice of the liquor, as well as her destroyed taste buds, had in fact improved the gruel. She made herself smile at all of them. “See? It’s better.” She looked into Rebecca’s guilty face. “Though I think I’ll pass on the rest of that.”

“More for us,” Hughes said cheerfully. He took the bottle from Rebecca and tossed the liquor back efficiently. Riza watched, impressed - it looked like he either didn’t mind the taste, or drank it so quickly he didn’t have time to.

“Here.”

Riza hadn’t seen Mustang move, but she found him holding out a second red bottle toward her. “This might be a bit gentler, since you’re new to alcohol. It’s wine.”

Riza hesitated before accepting the bottle. She tipped it back, bringing it to her lips and sipping. The wine was warm from sitting in the heat all day, bitter and nearly sour, sending a taste like grapes and cherries and spice rolling over her tongue.

“Thank you,” Riza said softly. “This is much better than Rebecca’s.”

“That’s because Rebecca drinks cheap shit.”

At the unexpected swear, Riza found herself laughing again. Mustang grinned back at her. His eyes were different from any she had seen before, Riza noticed - slanted and almond-shaped, with short, fine lashes. They were dark like the night sky, such a deep blue-grey they looked black. It was an arresting sight.

“But really,” Havoc’s voice broke through Riza’s musings and brought her attention back to her surroundings. Her face grew warm and she prayed she wasn’t blushing. Havoc went on, “You really don’t mind the teasing about the rumors thing? Because I don’t want to be an ass.”

“Then why bring it up?” Rebecca asked.

Havoc answered, but he held Riza’s gaze as he spoke. “Because the rumors are fucking stupid, and they deserve to be made fun of.”

_It seems fairer to let you speak for yourself,_ Mustang had said earlier that day. Riza glanced at him, but he did not react. She couldn’t be sure if he had said anything to Havoc, or if these people - loud, strange, kind - really were so different from the others.

Riza set down her empty bowl. Softly, she confessed, “I haven’t heard that before. It means a lot. Thank you.”

Havoc tilted his head, looking thoughtful. Then, as if coming to some sort of internal decision, he tipped back his head and sipped his liquor. “Don’t thank me quite yet. Wanna play a drinking game?”

“Sure,” Riza said, surprising herself. “What were you picturing?”

“We ask you questions about the rumors, and if they’re false, we drink. If they’re true, you drink. Or, I dunno, we just talk.”

“That sounds alarmingly like a conversation.”

Rebecca snorted. “ _Fuck,_ you’re funny.”

“Thank you.” Riza wondered if she had ever been told that before. She sipped from the bottle of wine she and Mustang were now apparently sharing. She wasn’t sure when it had started, but there was a soft, pleasant warmth sitting behind her breastbone and radiating out to her fingers and toes. So this was what an alcohol blanket felt like. She went on, “Alright. Ask me your questions.”

“Hell yes!” Havoc pumped the air with his fist. “First off - the rumors say that you’re expressionless and cold. You’ve already proven those false. So I will…” He tipped back the bottle and drank.

“I think you just want to get drunk,” Riza accused.

“That’s been his goal all along,” Mustang muttered. He reached forward and gently traded the bottle with Riza, taking a long drink before handing it back to her.

“I want to play!” Rebecca said. “And they say you’re mean and a bitch. Which like, I think you are? But in a good way!” She amended quickly. “Like in a female state alchemist, trail-blazer sort of way. So I will drink!”

She took a hefty sip from her bottle, as well.

“At least give her a _chance_ to get drunk,” Hughes said to them. He turned to Riza, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “I’m trying to come up with something that’s not insane or insulting.”

“Then we’ll have nothing to talk about,” Riza reminded him. The others laughed again, and Riza felt a smile pulling at her cheeks. So this is what it was to be funny? To feel welcomed?

_(Why did you keep me from this, father?)_

“They say that you create your flames with a snap of your fingers. Is that really it?” Hughes asked.

Riza shook her head. “Technically, it’s the gloves.” She reached into her pocket to pull out her gloves. She handed one to Hughes to examine, explaining, “It’s spark cloth. It works like a match striking - the friction creates a spark, and then the transmutation circle on the back of the gloves takes it from there. But since it is, technically, me snapping my fingers to make the spark, I’ll take a drink.”

Riza sipped the wine. Rebecca asked, “How does the alchemy work?”

The bottle stilled at Riza’s lips. The lid she kept carefully sealed over her memories and feelings of growing up with her father shuddered under the weight of the direct question, black ooze leaking over the tender folds of her brain -

_Read these books by morning, Riza, all of them, and I want you to have them memorized. If you get a single one wrong you will re-read every single one again._

_No, Riza, you cannot go to school with the others, we have important work to do - you cannot go to the market, I’ll fetch it and bring it back - you cannot go to the harvest festival, we have work to do here. Why are you crying, Riza? None of them know who you are, and so you will not be missed. The village folk cannot mourn the absence of someone they don’t even now._

_Do not flinch away! The fire will not burn you if you focus, focus, focus! Be better, you must be better!_

_People the world over will want to learn the secret to our alchemy, Riza. You must protect it with your life. This knowledge is more important than your life._

“Riza?”

Rebecca’s voice was gentle as it brought Riza back to herself. She blinked, realizing she had fallen into the depths of her memory. Rebecca looked so concerned as she brushed her fingertips against Riza’s shoulder. “Are you okay? Do you feel sick?”

“No,” Riza said. “I’m - I’m fine.” She forced a smile. “I can’t talk about the alchemy, I’m afraid. Trade secret.”

“Of course,” Rebecca agreed without arguing. “I’m sorry to bring it up.”

“It’s alright,” Riza assured her. She looked at the others. “Any other rumors you want to fact-check?”

“ _So_ many,” Havoc said. “Is it true one of your examiners fainted?”

Riza bit back a smirk and drank her wine. “That one is true.”

The others laughed. Hughes said, “Who was it?”

“Not sure,” Riza said with a shrug. “Um, I think the name was Grunner, or Grumman? I didn’t really think about it at the time. They gave me my watch and orders and I was sent to the front immediately after that, so there wasn’t much time to ask around.”

The next hour passed in a haze of back-and-forth questioning. Riza assured them that no, she did not eat the people she killed, and she let them all see her hands to prove that no, she did not sharpen her nails into claws. Unfortunately, Riza also did not have the ability to shoot fire from her eyes, nor did her alchemy grow stronger when she was on her period. She was a decent shot if her target was ten feet away, but any farther and she was sure to go wide. The others were able to get quite intoxicated as Riza debunked the most inane rumors she had ever heard. She suspected that they were asking her less because they believed the rumors and wanted to get drunk, and more to impress upon her that they, at least, thought the rumors were foolish.

But it was nice to hear what the rumor mill was churning out about her, putting the falsehoods to bed and informing this small group, at least, that the Flame-Witch was as human as the rest of them. Riza confirmed that she had, indeed, been taught at home before appearing as if from nowhere to take the Alchemist exam. It was also true that she earned the highest marks on the written test in years. She had, indeed, embroidered the transmutation circle onto her gloves herself, as paranoid as any other alchemist with the notion of letting anyone else learn her secrets (in reality, she was much, much more paranoid than the average alchemist). Riza had briefly crossed paths with the infamous Major General Olivier Armstrong in Central and lived to tell the tale - she relayed the story of the older woman sending her a brief nod and saying, “about fucking time the Alchemists had a woman.” Riza had also, she confessed, given the laundry facility workers a small heart attack when she walked in on her first day off to do her own laundry. It was also true that she had single-handedly overtaken a rebel base in Ben Kaman when a sudden sandstorm brought down communications and hindered her backup from arriving.

“You,” Rebecca said at last, her cheeks red from her liquor, “Are a badass.”

“I’ll say,” Havoc agreed.

Riza ducked her head, shrugging off the praise. “It’s just the job. I try my best to follow orders.” She traded the bottle with Mustang and took a sip. The dry wine had lost its bite and now felt smooth and mellow over her tongue. She handed it back to Mustang, fingers brushing. His hands were callused and warm. “But I want to know more about you all, if that’s okay. No drinking necessary.”

“Of course!” Rebecca said.

“Little ol’ me?” Havoc slurred. “I’m flattered.”

Riza shrugged. “I haven’t had the opportunity to get to know any other groups I’ve previously worked with. You’re the first people who have gone out of their way get to know me. It’s...nice. It’s like friends.”

“Oh, like back home?” Rebecca asked. “What do they think of you being a State Alchemist?”

“I didn’t have friends growing up.”

The words fell out of her mouth before she could stop them. _Oh, right, alcohol lowers inhibitions,_ she recalled. The others all went silent, her confession seeming to suck all of the oxygen out of the air as a very uncomfortable silence fell over them.

Hughes finally broke the silence. “Sometimes it takes some time to find your people,” he said gently. “I know the circumstances leave a lot to be desired, but maybe, here, you can start to.”

Riza met Hughes’s gaze. There was no judgement or laughter in his eyes, only compassion. She wondered if he knew how much his words meant, if he knew how he was applying a soothing balm to something that had sat infected and aching in her chest for as long as she could remember.

And then she wondered how damaged she really was, finding healing in a war.

“As it is,” Hughes started, “I’ve found my person!”

He shoved a familiar-looking letter in her face, accompanied by a photo of a beautiful woman. There was a collective groan and grumbling as Hughes took the opportunity, again, to tell them all about his darling, gorgeous, graceful Gracia, whose smile could cure the ill and whose gentle touch could heal the lame or something like that. Riza snatched the bottle from Mustang and took a long drink to drown it out.

“Yeah, you’re getting it now,” Mustang said, quietly enough only she heard. She looked at him and saw that he was laughing to himself at the others’ antics. Raising his voice, he called, “Hey! Are you going to answer her, or what?”

“Yeah, yeah, Deadshot, we’re on it,” Havoc said. He smirked at Mustang’s groan. “Not much to say, though. My parents own a chain of general and military supply shops around the East. We thought the war would have been good for business, but when the military centralized everything, business dropped. I enlisted to send money back home and give my parents one less mouth to feed.”

“Aw, Havoc, you’re _not_ an irredeemable prick,” Rebecca cooed. Havoc rolled his eyes and poked Rebecca on her cheek.

“Wish I could say the same for you.” Rebecca swatted Havoc’s hand away and turned to Riza. “And you already know this, but I was born and raised in central. I’m not much of an academic, I’m a terrible actress, and I would rather _die_ than be a secretary, so the military was the only option left for me, really. So now I’m here until I can find a good man to tie down.”

“Gross, Catalina.”

“Shut the _fuck_ up, Havoc.”

Hughes spoke over the others, answering Riza as if they weren’t squabbling at all. Riza was already seeing that this was a usual occurrence for them, and if they _didn’t_ ignore Rebecca and Havoc’s bickering, nothing would ever get done. “I come from a military family - my father and grandfathers on both sides were officers. But I’m not quite as good at being a meat shield as Havoc, or as good a driver as Rebecca, so I handle intelligence. Gathering, spying, putting information together - that’s where I shine.” He sighed, looking for the world like a lovesick idiot. “And, of course, I plan to be a husband when I get back, so I try to stay out of the fighting if I can.”

Rebecca, Hughes, and Mustang all simultaneously groaned and took drinks from their respective bottles.

“You’ve made your own drinking game, I see,” Riza observed wryly to Mustang.

“When you spend all day, every day with this man for two years, you make up some coping mechanisms,” Mustang said. He nodded in the others’ direction. “This is a daily occurrence.”

Riza followed his gaze to where Hughes was now waxing rhapsodic over the wonders of the one-woman life and how much he was looking forward to marriage, to the consternation of Rebecca and Havoc.

“Hughes, you seem to think it’s easier to find a good man than it is. Not all of them are like you - just look at Havoc!”

“Shut up, Catalina, you’re not exactly a peach yourself. You’d be a nightmare to date.”

“You _wish_ your nightmares had an ass like this - ”

“I’m a tits man, not an ass man, and if you knew me at all you would know that, _thanks_ -”

“Do you see what I mean, Hughes? This is what I’m working with. It’s too bad Mustang has a line of women a mile long and I have a rule against men I work with.”

“Oh, God,” Mustang mumbled, burying his face in his hands. Then, keeping his face hidden in one broad palm, he reached his other hand out towards Riza. “Gimme that wine. _Please_.”

Riza stifled a soft laugh and handed him the bottle. Mustang lifted it to his lips and took a few fortifying gulps, his Adam's apple bobbing and the fire illuminating his pale skin and the line of his throat. She cleared her throat and made herself look away from this strange, handsome man.

“A line, they say?” Riza asked, taking the bottle back from him and taking a sip. The glass was warm where he had held it.

“It’s not like that,” Mustang said immediately.

Riza lifted an eyebrow, surprised at how amusing she found his bashful response. Meanwhile, Havoc was listing off all of the women Mustang apparently had lined up for him - “Rita, Olive, Alice, Vivian, Molly, Caroline, Lucy -”

“I told you to stop looking at my mail, Havoc!” Mustang snapped. Havoc grinned lazily at him, waving a hand as if to ward off Mustang’s irritation.

“Yeah, yeah, I just saw the names on the stack of letters you get every time the mail comes through, I haven’t read anything. Anyway, Catalina…”

Riza glanced at Mustang, prompting, “‘It’s not like that?’”

“No.” Mustang sighed. He glanced at her consideringly, weighing something over in his mind. Then, coming to a decision, he reached into his rucksack next to him and pulled out a stack of paper. Havoc wasn’t exaggerating when he’d said Mustang received a lot of mail. Then, to Riza’s very great surprise, Mustang pressed the letters into Riza’s hands. She flipped through them, reading the names - _Rita, Olive, Alice, Vivian, Molly, Caroline, Lucy, Bai Jie, Jingyi, Valeria, Bianca, Danil,_ and finally, _Aunt Chris._

Understanding dawned in Riza when she saw that the letters all came from the same address.

“They’re my sisters,” Mustang explained.

“One of thirteen?” Riza asked.

“And the only boy.”

“You must have had a loud childhood.”

“You can’t _begin_ to imagine.”

Riza found herself laughing again, and Mustang joined her. The sound was genuine, laced with good-natured self-deprecation and homesickness so sharp Riza felt it behind her breastbone. She wished she could have related to it. She wished she had someone to write her letters, to write her pages and pages of words and sign them with _missing you, love you, be safe, come home soon._

Wine made her emotional, Riza realized. Then she realized something else, and her hands went to her mouth in horror.

“Oh my God, this afternoon!” She cried. She glanced over at the others, but they did not seem to hear her as Rebecca and Havoc were arguing and Hughes was encouraging them to _really get into it, communication is the foundation of all healthy relationships!_

Mustang shook his head. “It’s alright. I had the thought, myself, when I intercepted them. They looked terrified of me. I felt like a fool for not thinking about it before. They were more comfortable with you, anyway.” He caught her eye, waiting for her to lower her nervous hands before going on. “Thank you again for helping me.”

His gaze was too direct, too open, too _kind_. It made the back of Riza’s neck itch. She felt like she was standing in front of her flames, facing something beautiful and unfathomably powerful that could burn her if she made a wrong move. She looked down at the bottle of wine they shared, swirling the red liquid at the bottom. Her head felt floaty and hazy, her thoughts disconnected. She wasn’t sure she liked being this tipsy. It left her feeling vulnerable and open, her faculties and emotions teetering dangerously within her control.

“I didn’t do anything special,” Riza said. “If I hadn’t seen you, I don’t think I would have done it at all.”

To his eternal credit, Mustang didn’t try to fill the following silence with weak platitudes. He didn’t tell her _sure you would have_ , or _don’t be so hard on yourself_. She appreciated the companionable silence that sat between them as they watched the other three bicker loudly.

“Your mother must have been busy,” Riza started.

“Aunt,” Mustang corrected. He looked at his feet, toed at the sandy gravel. “My parents died when I was young. I hardly even remember them.” He gave a half-laugh. “I call her Aunt, but I actually have no idea if she’s my blood relative.”

“Does it matter?” Riza asked.

Mustang twisted his head to peer at her, surprised. Then he smiled another one of those smiles that made something quiver in her chest, and he said, “No, I don’t think so.”

“Me, neither.” This conversation was dreading into dangerous territory, and Riza decided to steer clear from the talk about families or anything that would make Mustang smile at her like that. So she changed the subject, saying, “So. I hear they call you Deadshot.”

“Oh, _no_ ,” Mustang said. He looked like he wanted to bury his face in his hands again. “Not you, too.”

“Why do they call you that?” Riza asked.

“Havoc started it as a joke, and Hughes joins in sometimes. But our Regiment has been around for a while, and we’re all quite talented, so stories spread. I’m not so humble to say that I’m not one of the best shots out here, but to have a nickname for it...” His nose wrinkled in distaste.

“Why don’t you like the name?” Riza asked.

Mustang considered his answer for a moment. The hesitation reminded her of their meeting earlier in the day, when she dragged him into an abandoned house and demanded to ask what the hell he was thinking. She had thought that Mustang was just another careless, thoughtless soldier; perhaps he _was_ careless, and took unnecessary risks, but she could already see that he was anything but thoughtless. There was a quiet intensity to him as he mulled over her question.

Finally, Mustang said, “I’m not sure I want to be celebrated for killing people.”

_Oh._

For the wildest few seconds, Riza remembered one of her overnight study sessions with her father. He had been intensely focused on his own research, lost in his own world of combustion equations, and Riza had reached a point where her mind felt like a saturated sponge that couldn’t absorb another fact. She had gone to the bookshelf under the guise of fetching another textbook but had, at random, pulled one of her mother’s old favorites from the shelf and hid it behind her copy of _On Alchemy._ It had been one of those thrilling, deeply romantic tales, something about love conquering all on the high pirate seas. One passage that had always stuck in Riza’s memory was the heroine speaking to her hero, early in the story, and being _so touched_ by something he did.

Riza had always thought that was a peculiar way to describe emotions. _Touched_ \- touched what? Touched how? But now, suddenly, watching Mustang consider whether to confide this truth in her, and choosing to do so, trusting her with this secret, and putting something into words that Riza hadn’t quite managed to name herself - it was as if he had reached into her chest and plucked at her heartstrings like she were a harp. She was _touched_ , by his compassion and honesty and by the pain in his kind, dark eyes.

_I’m not drinking wine again, that’s for sure._

“I think I can understand that,” Riza confessed. She swirled the wine bottle, frowning. “They keep praising me for doing my job so well.”

Her gaze went flat, distant. She wondered, as she did dozens of times a day, what her father would think of all this - would he be proud of her, for using her power? Would he be horrified that their work was being used like this? Would he be ashamed of her for feeling conflicted? Would he be furious with her for revealing her work, for sharing it with the world, even if it was like this?

Did it matter? He was dead, and she was alive, if only by definition.

Mustang’s fingers over hers brought her out of her reverie. Gently, he said, “I think we’ve all had enough.”

He took the bottle from her hands and replaced it with his own water canteen. Riza remembered that she would need to get a new one when she arrived back on the main base. The buoyed feeling in her chest started to deflate as she looked at these four - Mustang quietly clearing away the bottles; Hughes cleaning and sharpening his knives; Havoc leaning against a crumbling wall, arms crossed over his chest, snoring softly; Rebecca dozing on the ground, her head pillowed on Havoc’s thigh.

In a few days’ time, Riza would be gone, attached to a new regiment or sent off with the other State Alchemists, and these four would stay together. It was hard not to be jealous.

By now she was growing increasingly maudlin, so Riza took several long gulps of water from Mustang’s canteen. She returned it to him when he sat beside her again. For several long minutes, they all sat in silence.

It was broken, not by any of them, but by a Private jogging to their little camp. He stopped short, looking flustered at facing the Flame-Witch and Deadshot, but he saluted properly and turned his attention to the regiment’s intelligence officer.

“We’ve received a transmission, Sergeant Hughes, sir,” the Private said. “And an emergency convoy just arrived with new orders. If you’ll come with me, sir, Command will share more.”

Hughes and Mustang exchanged a look Riza could not parse. Hughes stood, sheathing his knives and following the Private to the camp radio.

Riza swallowed. She pressed her back against a crumbled column, tucking her arms under her bent knees and staring up into the sky. The stars and constellations were the same she had grown up with in the west, but something about the change in latitude and longitude, the enormity of the black dome of sky over her head, left her feeling very small and out of place.

Something was wrong. Something was about to change. Riza caught Mustang’s eye, and without either of them speaking a word, she knew he felt it, too.

Hughes returned some ten minutes later bearing two sealed envelopes. His face was pale, his lips pursed together into a thin line parallel with his square chin. His hands were trembling slightly as he handed one of the envelopes to Riza.

Mustang stood up. He swayed slightly on his feet. “Hughes, what -?”

“Get up,” Hughes said. There was a rough catch to his voice as he prodded Havoc and Rebecca awake. Grumbling, swearing, and a little sleep-stupid, the two roused themselves, Rebecca sitting up and slapping Havoc’s leg like it was his fault she had fallen asleep there.

“What is it?” Rebecca asked. Her eyes swept over them all. Her brow furrowed. “Something is wrong. What happened?”

“Read this, all of you,” Hughes said. He cracked open the seal of his envelope and pulled out a telegram. Riza could see the stamp of the Fuhrer at the top of the page.

Dimly, knowing that everything was about to change, Riza opened her own seal and removed two pages from her envelope. The first was a directive from General Grand to return to the main camp as quickly as possible to meet with the other State Alchemists. The other was a copy of the same form that the others had from the Fuhrer.

**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, FROM THE OFFICE OF HIS EXCELLENCY, FUHRER KING BRADLEY**

**EXECUTIVE ORDER 3066**

**EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, any and all ISHVALAN soldiers (or soldiers of more than one-quarter ISHVALAN DESCENT) are hereby STRIPPED of their stations, duties, and commands, and are to be DETAINED FOR QUESTIONING in relation to suspicion of ESPIONAGE, SEDITION, SABOTAGE, AND TREASON.**

**FURTHERMORE, all State Alchemists are called to fulfill their duties as HUMAN WEAPONS and are to be deployed to the FRONT LINES in a campaign of EXTERMINATION. There are to be NO SURVIVORS.**

**Signed,**

**Fuhrer King Bradley**

The paper slipped in Riza’s hands. Her mind echoed with the words on the page, jumbling over each other, growing louder and louder and louder -

_Any and all Ishvalan soldiers are stripped of their stations, duties, and commands, and are to be detained for questioning._

_All State Alchemists are to be deployed to the front lines in a campaign of extermination. There are to be no survivors._

_Human weapons. Human weapons. Human weapons. Human weapons._

Riza stood alone as a one-woman army, her weapons of mass destruction gripping her orders so hard she worried the paper would tear. The soldiers of the third regiment stood ten feet from her, but the distance may have been miles for how far away Riza felt. Almost as one, the others looked up from their orders and stared at Riza.

_Other people, Riza, they’ll never understand you. People like them will never understand people like us. The common man fears what he cannot understand. To them, you will always be different._

Already, Riza could feel herself pulling away, shutting her emotions down. It was done with all the abruptness and efficiency of a child crushing a fresh flower.

They thought she was funny, human. They didn’t know what she was capable of, the damage that she could rend with only a snap of her fingers. The only reason they weren’t horrified at the sight of her was because they had never seen what a monster she truly was.

She was the _Terror of Ishval._ The _Flame-Witch._

The warmth that had slowly, hesitantly flickered to life in her chest snuffed out like a candle. Without a word, Riza turned on her heel and went to her tent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> rebecca and havoc are so fun to write and i love them. and roy is a darling.
> 
> as always, i can be found on my tumblr @notantherwritingblog! feel free to drop my a line!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> roy's time in ishval, post-order 3066.
> 
> CW for graphic depictions of violence, the war, PTSD/dissociation, mentions of suicide, and time-period typical racism and sexism.
> 
> PLEASE note the new addition of the "graphic depictions of violence" warning!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fr y'all please note the content warnings!  
> This chapter tries to capture that sort of timeless feel of everything is bad and happening at once and blurring together, so when time feels wonky, that’s because it is. That’s intentional. I hadn’t thought I was going in-depth into the hell that is Ishval, and then I did, so I’m sorry for accidentally lying to that one person. practice self-care, y'all!

## 

chapter 4.

Before he boarded the train to Ishval, Aunt Chris had gifted Roy with three things: a serrated hunting knife of Drachman make (better than the Amestrian military standard-issue, she insisted), a pinch on his cheek that left a mark for over an hour, and this piece of advice:

_Don’t fear death, Roy-boy. It’s quicker and easier than falling asleep. And it’s your closest friend in a war. Make peace with it, and it’ll make peace with you._

Roy turned those words over in his mind in the weeks after Order 3066’s release. If death was so easy to find - from heatstroke and dehydration, from a knife to the throat or a bullet to the head - he wondered, some nights, if he had died somewhere along the way, and this was hell.

Roy was not particularly religious, unlike some of his sisters. But Ishval post-Order 3066 was the closest thing to hell he could have imagined. After the Third Regiment arrived at the main base to learn more and receive their new orders and placements, Roy’s days had blended together in a haze of hot days and chilly nights, his nose forever stinging from sunburn and sand and soot and smoke. His ears echoed with the phantom click-rattle-snap, click-rattle-snap of his rifle loading, cocking, firing. Only sparse moments stood out to him:

The morning they finally arrived at the main base, and Major Hawkeye drifted away from them without even saying goodbye. There had been a listlessness to her steps that reminded Roy of old stories of ghosts and hauntings. The girl who had smiled at him through his scope, laughed with him across a fire, shared a bottle of dry red wine with him, had vanished the night they received their orders. She was buried deep inside the body of Riza Hawkeye, Flame Alchemist, tucked up small and safe to wait out the end of this war. Her eyes had gone dark, hollow, and distant as she floated through the crowd into the waiting area with the other State Alchemists. She had not looked back.

Then there was moment the munitions officer handed Roy a pile of bullet cartridges, assuring Roy that he no longer needed to worry about his paperwork or counting his bullets, because supplies were coming in fast now that the Generals in Central had finally decided to “put an end to this nonsense and squash the desert bugs.”

Roy would have fought the man and been court-martialed on the spot if Hughes hadn’t put a hand to his shoulder, fingers squeezing and digging into the pressure point in his collarbone.

Then there was the first day that Roy provided backup to a State Alchemist. Major Giolio Comanche was friendly enough on the way out to the town they were set to decimate, joking and gently cajoling the soldiers in the caravan into better spirits. But from his vantage point, Roy had watched the grandfatherly smile on the Silver Alchemist’s face grow into something vicious and cruel. He looked _delighted_ as he summoned his weapons - swords, daggers, hatchets, halberds - and cut trails of blood and viscera through the white-gold sand.

Roy felt like he was hovering outside of his own body that day. He watched, as if it were a cinema or training video, as he lay in his stomach and loaded his rifle and fired. He didn’t bother to wear his ear plugs, letting the tinnitus mute the sound of screams and begs and prayers.

At the end of the day, when a horrible, total silence fell over the city, Roy felt himself crash back into his body and scrambled forward to vomit over the side of the tower. Havoc drove the truck back to base that night because Rebecca was crying too hard to see straight.

Major Comanche tutted in the back of the truck. The caravan was silent save for the rumbling of the engine and Rebecca’s gasping, choking sobs. “Poor thing. A war is no place for a woman. Always said so.”

Roy’s lip curled into a snarl. Hughes squeezed his knee, _telling him to shut up, or you’ll be court-martialed._

Hughes said, his voice casual but eyes cutting, “We have to retain our humanity somehow, Major.”

Three days later, a gunshot rang through the camp as they traveled to the next Ishvalan town set for destruction. Roy grabbed his gun, preparing to join the scramble - anticipating an ambush, a firefight, _something_ \- only to see Hughes hadn’t moved from his spot in front of the fire.

“Came from the tents,” Hughes said simply. He lifted his flask in a toasting motion to Roy, then to the sky, and tipped it back.

Roy looked across the camp and watched Dr. Rockbell exit a tent, shaking her head and wiping her bloodied hands on her smock. A cry started up, a collective groaning and weeping and swearing and cursing and Roy collapsed between Hughes and Havoc in front of their little fire. Wordlessly, Hughes passed Roy his flask.

“There will be more,” Hughes said, answering Roy’s unasked, unformed question.

Havoc fiddled with a pack of cigarettes he had traded with an injured soldier. Wordlessly, he pulled one out, lit it on the fire, and took a drag from it. He coughed up a lung doing so, but with a determined clench of his jaw, he put the cigarette between his teeth like he could bite it in half.

Roy wrapped his arms over his knees, staring at the fire. He thought dimly of Riza Hawkeye, though it felt like an intrusion or insubordination to call her such even in the solitude of his mind. The Major did not need him to protect her, or to think of her. She neither knew nor cared if he was staying up late in this desert, staring at the stars wondering if she was thinking of him, too. It would be presumptive at best and patronizing at worst to mourn her, even when all intelligence reports raved about how she was sweeping the rebels aside.

(Yet, he still remembered hearing her laugh for the first time, seeing her smile, cheeks dimpling and eyes sparkling with dry wit and mischief. He remembered watching her snuff the out light of her own eyes.)

The Third Regiment lost two more people in the next week. It was not because of fighting.

Though the tide of war was turning in Amestris’s favor, the Third Regiment knew better than to slack on their security. Indeed, as things grew more desperate for the Ishvalans - thousands dead, millions displaced, starving, ill, and injured - attacks on Amestrian military camps only grew. The higher-ups struggled to parse out how to prevent these suicide attacks - how does one defeat an enemy that no longer cared for death, knowing they were set to be exterminated anyway?

“We’ve just got to kill them all first,” one of the Cadets in their Regiment said one night, and Rebecca broke two fingers denting in his cheekbone.

“You’ve got to be more careful,” Havoc said to her ten minutes later when he and Roy escorted her to the medical tent. “Are you trying to get yourself court-martialed?”

“Better than just sit and take it,” Rebecca snapped. Her cheeks were red, her eyes teary from the pain and anger. The dark circles on her face hinted at the nights gone by without sleep. “And I’ll do it again, screw the consequences - _ouch!”_

“I really wouldn’t recommend punching anyone else for a few weeks,” Dr. Rockbell said. He finished wrapping Rebecca’s hand in gauze to stabilize it and used some tape to seal it. His silver wedding ring glinted dully in the light - the medical tent was the only place on base that had electricity. “At least with this hand.”

“Yeah, yeah, punch as many folks as you want, I don’t care,” Havoc said, waving off Rebecca’s bad mood. “What I meant was don’t do it in front of fifteen people. Get ‘em alone, rough ‘em up with a buddy, make sure you have backup. I’ll help you.”

“As a matter of course,” Dr. Rockbell interrupted casually. “You should _probably_ refrain from planning to get the jump on your more...opinionated comrades in front of the camp doctor. I may not be enlisted, but I do have duties.”

Havoc and Rebecca looked shamefaced and chorused, like scolded children, “Yes, doctor.”

“Oh, I don’t plan to stop you, or report you,” Dr. Rockbell said. “Just a word of caution.” He stood, smiling gently down at them. He must have been in his mid-thirties, but he seemed so much older than them as he said, “I rather agree with you. Be safe.”

Havoc and Rebecca left, walking two abreast in the hall as Roy followed behind him. He was never sure what possessed him to do it, but just before he left, Roy turned around, watching Dr. Rockbell wash his hands and then enter a side supply room.

In the moment just before the light flicked on and the door swung shut, Roy swore he caught a glimpse of dark skin and red eyes through the door.

Roy knew the question of his Regiment being attacked was not a matter of if, but when. He finally received his answer two months into the extermination campaign.

It felt like he had finally dozed off into a fitful sleep when he jerked awake. There was light shining through his tent. It was the wrong color to be sunrise, harsh red and orange, and already he could smell smoke and soot, and hear screams, and explosions -

Roy threw his blankets off himself and stumbled to his feet. There wasn’t time to adequately put on his uniform - he shoved his feet into his boots without lacing them all the way and shoved his arms through his military coat. He tumbled out of his tent, trying to gain his bearings. There seemed to be the most noise on the western edge of camp, so that’s where he directed his steps. He found Havoc helping support an injured comrade, limping in the same direction as he.

“Report, Havoc?” Roy yelled over the din.

“Glad you could _join us_ , Deadshot,” Havoc said dryly. His cigarette fell out of his mouth to snuff out on the ground. He grimaced down at it. “Dammit. Anyway - rebels getting revenge for, you know, _everything_ \- but probably survivors from Kaistir.”

“You could take this more seriously.”

There was a shuddering explosion; some hundred feet away, fire and sand erupted dozens of feet into the air as a bomb went off. For a moment, there was silence - then the screaming and yelling erupted anew.

Havoc shrugged his free shoulder. “Seems serious enough already.”

Roy grit his teeth, knowing that Havoc used humor to cope and distance himself from everything that was happening. It was a survival tactic, even if it came across as callous. It was that, or go distant and cold, shutting down all the parts of him that made him human. Roy rather envied him for it.

He turned away from Havoc, who was escorting the injured soldier to a spot where he could shoot because his injury wasn’t debilitating, and scanned their surroundings for a hill. He had seen a halfway-decent vantage on his way in, a habit he had picked up in the past few months, and made a beeline for it. There was no time to go through his full, proper setup, even if he knew he was going to be cleaning sand out of the gun’s barrel for weeks. He set up his rifle in record time, doing his best to stay low and out of sight on this little sandy knoll.

He breathed in, out, narrowing his focus and his entire world down to what he saw through his scope. He watched the movement of the Ishvalan rebels, of his fellow soldiers.

_In. Out. In. Out -_

A shot rang out. A rebel dropped.

_In. Out. In. Out -_

A second.

_In. Out._

A third.

_In. Out. In -_

A brief hush in the fighting, the soft whistling of a knife through the air, was the only thing that saved Roy’s life.

Even still, he rolled aside and felt the knife sliced through his jacket and shirt, slicing a long cut down his side. He snarled with pain, grimacing as he felt sand already digging into the wound. The rebel threw themselves on top of Roy, hands going around his neck. Roy gasped for breath for a few long, nightmarish moments - the Ishvalan on top of him had red eyes that seared into him, chilling his blood with the depths of their hatred. They were saying something that Roy couldn’t understand with his poor Ishvalan, but the message came across pretty clearly. His vision started to tunnel, white stars exploding in front of his eyes.

_I didn’t make peace with this,_ Roy thought as his vision flickered.

Faintly, Roy’s hands spasmed beside him, scrabbling through the sand. His hand closed around something hard, and before he could think, he thrust it upward, sinking the knife to the hilt in the rebel’s stomach.

They both froze. Roy watched in horror as blood started to drip through the wound. The rebel opened their mouth to speak, but instead of sound, blood dribbled through still lips. It trailed down their chin. The viscous liquid dripped once, twice onto Roy’s face.

The pressure constricting his throat released, and the rebel slumped to the side into the sand.

Roy gasped in a huge breath, coughing, the air and heat and sand scraping his bruised airway. He rolled to his knees, crawling toward the rebel in the sand. Blood, there was so much _blood_ , it leaked from around the knife wound and pooled in the sand.

“Wait, wait, nononono, come on, come _on_ ,” Roy said, glaring down at the man. He shucked his ruined jacket from his shoulders and pressed it around the rebel’s wound. The air smelled like smoke and metal. “Don’t, please don’t die, I’ve never -” _I’ve never killed like this, raw and bloody and in person, I want to take it back, please don’t die_ “- I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, don’t, please don’t -”

The rebel unleashed one final, rattling breath. In, Out.

Roy stared down at the man. He was older than Roy, perhaps in his mid-forties, with white hair plaited back and lines around his mouth and eyes. He looked at him with a horrible sort of detachment, feeling very suddenly as if he was far away, floating above it all.

Dimly, mechanically, Roy went back to his abandoned rifle. This was a war, and they were in a battle, and he was Deadshot.

_In. Out. In. Out._

Another rebel fell.

What felt like the next moment, Roy was blinking awake, staring up at the ceiling at a single dangling bulb. He frowned, confused. This was not his sandy hill. He took a breath and hissed in pain. His throat felt raw and bruised, his side throbbing dully. This wasn’t how he imagined heaven, if the place existed.

“Welcome back,” said a voice to his right. Roy blinked blearily as he looked up into the face of Dr. Rockbell. She smiled gently down at him. “How are you feeling, Staff Sergeant?”

Roy thought about it. It was harder than usual. Finally, he said, “Hurts.”

“I can imagine,” Dr. Rockbell said. She flicked through a few papers at the foot of his bed. “You had a six-inch laceration in your side, as well as bruises around your throat from strangulation. Does anything else hurt?”

Roy took stock of his body. Truth be told, everything seemed to ache these days, joints popping and muscles dully throbbing like he was in his sixties and not his twenties. But nothing out of the ordinary was bothering him.

“I’m fine,” Roy said. “How did I get here?”

“Sergeant Hughes brought you in,” Dr. Rockbell explained. “I made him leave while we cleaned and stitched you up - you’ll need to keep your bandages clean and dry to prevent infection, but you should be clear to leave in the morning. I believe he’s checking on some other folks now. Would you like me to send him in, if I bump into him?”

“I would appreciate that, Doctor,” Roy said. He swallowed painfully. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Ugh, please don’t,” Dr. Rockbell said, wrinkling her nose. “I’ve got a six-year-old back home. I should be spry for several years yet. Doctor or Sarah is fine, Staff Sergeant.”

“Fair enough.” Roy wanted to laugh, but the motion caught on his stitches and came out in a hiss. “Where are you from, Doctor?”

“Oh, just a tiny little down on the end of one of the Eastern rails,” Dr. Rockbell said. “Risembool. My husband was born and raised there.”

She stood up. “You get some rest, Staff Sergeant. I’ll send in Sergeant Hughes if I see him.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Roy said. He leaned his head back on his pillows. He could hear distant groans of pain through the walls, but outside the medical bay all was quiet. It seemed the fighting was over.

“Knock, knock!” Came a voice from outside the curtain that seconded as a door. Without waiting for an answer, Hughes and Havoc stepped through together.

“What if I was asleep?” Roy asked mock-grumpily, glaring up at them.

“No one out here sleeps anymore,” Havoc said, tone light but words hitting deep. Still, Roy snorted out a chuckle and grimaced when his throat spasmed again. He looked up at Hughes.

“I’m told you’re the one who brought me back here,” Roy said to Hughes. “Thank you.”

Hughes nodded, his eyes shadowed. “You scared the hell out of me. You were out cold, bleeding pretty heavily. There was so much blood on the sand, and I wasn’t sure whose was whose.”

Roy startled half-upright. The wound in his side stung in protest against the sudden movement. “The Ishvalan,” he started, ashamed to have forgotten for even a second. He looked down at his hands and his stomach rolled to see that there was blood and sand coating his fingertips, gouged under his nails. “Did he -?”

Hughes shook his head sadly. “He was long gone, Roy. I’m sorry.”

“It was self-defense,” Havoc reminded Roy. His tone took on the gentle quality he only ever used with him, Hughes, or, most commonly lately, Rebecca. “Though I know that may not help you right now.”

“It doesn’t.”

“It’s true.”

“I know.”

Silence fell over the room. Roy breathed in slowly, feeling the air whistle in his sore throat. He said, “Where’s Catalina? What were our losses?”

“Catalina’s fine,” Hughes assured Roy. “We just came from seeing her - the other Dr. Rockbell was stitching up a head wound. Nothing too deep or serious, but it’s probably gonna leave a scar. Other than that, just bumps and bruises.” He hesitated. “And we’re still waiting for the tally, but I think our losses are at almost fifteen.”

“Shit,” Roy swore. He grit his teeth against the pain of speaking. “That’s almost a quarter of us.”

“Don’t we know it,” Havoc said. He leaned back against the door. “Head’s up - rumor is some hotshot brass is on his way, wants to talk to you.”

“Am I in trouble?” Roy asked.

“Considering the rumors going around about the injured Deadshot picking off about a dozen rebel attackers after killing one with his bare hands, I think he’s gonna give you a medal,” Hughes said sagely.

Roy was suddenly glad that he had not managed to wolf down much dinner, or else he would have retched it back up at that statement. “I don’t want an award for that.”

“I don’t think the brass cares,” Hughes said. “‘Decorated war hero Roy “Deadshot” Mustang saves military base’ is much better PR than ‘turns out genocide wasn’t the answer, so now we’re going to walk it back.’”

Roy groaned weakly and lay his head back against his pillows. He hadn’t _wanted_ to take out the rebels - how could he even be awarded for twelve when he only remembered five? How could he accept a medal when he had this much blood on his hands ( _literally_ )? How could he say to this brass “thank you for this honor, but please shove it?” How could he even refuse, take the high road when he was down in the mud with the rest of them?

“I can _hear_ your mind spinning,” Hughes teased gently.

“I never claimed to have your brains,” Roy said weakly, and that cajoled a laugh out of Hughes.

“Hello?” Said a voice from the outside. Rebecca poked her head into the room. “You gents decent?”

“Never a day in my life, Catalina,” Havoc crowed. Hughes shot Roy a warning look, one that said _lock in_ rather than the more common _she’s on the warpath._

Alarmed, Roy struggled to return his own expression of _what are you talking about_ and be subtle about it while also greeting Catalina. She had a nasty wound on her left temple, stitched and bandaged. Her eye was slightly swollen, her hair still damp from definitely washing blood out of it. There were bruises all down her arms, and she was slightly favoring her left leg.

“What happened to you, Catalina?” Roy asked, horrified.

“A truck toppled over when a bomb went off on its other side,” Rebecca said. She was looking at Havoc as she said it. “It would have killed me if Havoc hadn’t pulled me aside.”

Havoc shrugged. “Not killed. But you would have needed new legs, probably.” He kicked his toe at an imaginary rock. “You still got off a good shot with that grenade. Saved my life, too, probably.”

“Yeah,” Rebecca said. “We make a good team.”

“Yeah,” Havoc echoed.

And then - Roy was in too much pain, his head foggy with what he had finally realized was a sedative, he wasn’t sure how it happened - Rebecca and Havoc were feverishly kissing in the middle of Roy’s “room,” pressed together from head to toe, hands clutching at each others’ hair and clothes.

“Oi!” Hughes yelled over Roy’s quiet, half-hearted protests that they _please_ not do this here. Hughes grabbed a spare pillow and threw it at the couple. “Have some respect! Do that somewhere else!”

“If anyone should be kissed in this hospital room, it’s me,” Roy grumbled as Rebecca and Havoc ran off to do...whatever, Roy did not want to think about it.

“Unfortunately, intel says the Flame Alchemist is farther west, somewhere around Kharbak,” Hughes said, nodding sagely.

Roy hadn’t heard this - Kharbak was a large city, an industrial hub but bigger civilian population than they had hit before - but before he could comment, his mind caught up with what Hughes was implying. He scowled at his best friend. “What are you talking about, Hughes?”

“Nothing,” Hughes said, his green eyes wide and innocent.

“Bullshit.”

Hughes snorted out a laugh. “If you’ve got the energy to be pissy, you’re going to be fine. It’s nice to see.” He put his feet up on the end of Roy’s bed.

Roy tried to kick Hughes’s smelly, sandy boots off without success. “Quit insinuating there was anything between me and the Major.”

“I’m not the one who shared a bottle of wine with her or is talking about being kissed at his bedside,” Hughes said.

“She was new to alcohol, and I grew up in a bar,” Roy argued. It was a weak hill to die on ( _oh, poor phrasing_ ), but he said it anyway.

Hughes grinned widely. It made him look like himself again, the irritating meddler. “Have you written home about her yet?”

Roy wished he was in a position to swing his pillow on Hughes. As it was, he could only glare fruitlessly at Hughes. He wanted to deny it, but the letters in his bag contained a single sealed note addressed to _Mjr. Riza Hawkeye_. Not that Hughes needed to know that.

Hughes beamed back, and Roy knew he was damned regardless.

Following their Regiment’s attack, they were ordered back to the main base to await a fresh group of baby-faced recruits. Rumors abound that the military was starting to fill its ranks and trenches with soldiers who hadn’t even finished their time at the academy, and Roy was not looking forward to learning if these rumors were true. He and Hughes, at least, were sure they were true.

They were proven right their first morning back at the main base, where they met the fresh-faced, bright-eyed new members of their Regiment. They kept staring at Roy every time he was in eyesight of them. It made him want to gnash his teeth together, but that wasn’t good for morale. But he had to remind himself that it wasn’t these kids’ fault that their military and nation was fueling a war of extermination, or that they had believed the propaganda that raised them.

Not that Roy had any legs to stand on. He could condemn the war and their actions in his head all he wanted, but when it came down to it, he still picked up his gun and pointed it where he was told. Maybe Roy was even worse than them, knowing the evil of his orders and following them anyway.

That same morning in the camp they met the new recruits, Roy was summoned to the base’s center to see General Grand. He walked into the tent that doubled as his office, the space occupied by a desk and a long table covered with a massive map of Ishval. Regiments and troops were signified by number and color, State Alchemists signified by their call signs.

His eyes lingered on a figurine carved in the shape of a salamander. It was stationed just outside of Kharbak, as Hughes said it would be.

Roy suddenly remembered why he was there and snapped his heels together, raising his hand into a perfect salute. “General Grand, sir.”

General Grand returned his salute. “At ease, Staff Sergeant.”

Roy appreciated that, because the stitches in his side had pulled uncomfortably when he lifted his arm above his head. He slowly lowered his arm, trying not to show his grimace when the stitches rubbed against his bandages.

General Grand beamed down at him. “I’m sure you know why you’re here, Staff Sergeant Mustang.”

Roy swallowed. The bruises around his throat were slowly fading, the long finger-shaped bruises yellow and green under his skin. His uniform’s high collar hid all but the highest bruises, which stretched around his jaw. “I do not, General, sir.”

General Grand laughed. “I respect your humility, Staff Sergeant. But there’s no need for that here among friends.”

He lifted a black box off of his desk. He stepped toward Roy, opening the lid. Roy’s eyes went wide at the medal that sat nestled on crushed black velvet: gold embossed with the roaring lion of the Amestrian military, surrounded by intricate designs of ivy. It hung from rich red silk.

“Staff Sergeant Roy Mustang,” General Grand started, “For exceptionally meritorious service to the Amestrian military in a duty of great responsibility, it is my great honor to present to you the Distinguished Service Medal.”

He paused, waiting for Roy to answer. His mind spun, amazed and proud and disgusted and confused. There were so many things he wanted to say: the smart _thank you for this honor, sir_ at war with the more honest _but I didn’t really do anything exceptional, wouldn’t the Commendation Medal be more appropriate_ or _shove this gaudy piece of junk up your ass, douchebag._

What came out of his mouth was an unfortunate mix of the two.

“Thank you, General Grand,” Roy said, “But I cannot accept this medal.”

General Grand’s mouth snapped shut. His eyes narrowed dangerously as he drew himself up to his full height, towering above Roy. There was a horrible snarl playing at his lips below his mustache. “And why is that, Staff Sergeant?”

Roy swallowed. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“Permission _denied_ , Staff Sergeant.”

_Oh well._ Roy said, “To accept this medal would imply that I am proud of my actions, or I condone my orders. I cannot do that. Therefore, I must refuse this honor. Thank you for your consideration.”

General Grand was silent. It was the bad kind of silent - the one just before the storm breaks, before the explosion is loosed on the field.

General Grand spoke, his voice dangerously quiet. Roy knew why: if Roy wanted to report anything the General said to him, it would be his word against Grand’s, and everyone would believe the decorated State Alchemist over the Xingese orphan hotshot raised in a brothel.

“I know you have an injury from recent combat,” General Grand snarled. “So I am going to give you one chance to rephrase that statement. I will remind you that I do not give a _damn_ about what your precious sensitivities _condone_.” Roy hadn’t noticed the General move, but suddenly he was backed into the table and Grand's hand was pressing harshly into Roy’s wound. Roy swallowed a yell of pain that ricocheted like lightning along his ribs. “I will _also_ remind you that such statements are tantamount to _sedition_ , and I will court-martial you and _every single member_ of your precious little Regiment if you repeat them. You are lucky this war is not against your kind, or I would have no qualms about throwing a Xingese runt like you out of this military in a heartbeat.”

General Grand pressed on Roy’s wound again. “Now. We are going to go outside, and I am going to pin that _fucking_ medal on you in front of a dozen reporters, and you are going to smile for the Central cameras. Is that clear?”

Roy grimaced. He knew he had lost, had never had a chance of winning. General Grand would bury him in the sand outside if he thought it would help them win this war. He would destroy Roy’s military career so thoroughly he would never recover, and the careers of his friends. Hughes would lose his intelligence position, Rebecca her one shot at an independent life, Havoc his ability to support his family. Roy could never send his sisters to school with a dishonorable discharge, let alone university. He would never see Riza Hawkeye again.

Roy swallowed. “Yes, General, sir.”

The flashing cameras outside sounded like a chattering, mechanical chorus of mocking laughter.

That night, Roy smashed bottles against a crumbling strong building until his hands finally stopped shaking.

The only thing that kept Roy going after that encounter with General Grand - the only thing that kept him from seriously considering joining those three Regiment soldiers - was his letters from home. With the front so fraught with activity and them all moving so much, mail had dropped to a steady trickle. Roy only received two letters the first three months of the Extermination campaign. It seemed now the girls were taking turns to write, instead of all of them writing to Roy at once. After Aunt Chris’s first page, filled with brisk updates from the bar about their favorite patrons and the goings-on in the city, like Roy was on a business trip and not shooting people in the desert, there were usually at least four letters from various sisters. There was no pattern to who wrote when, but Roy found himself enjoying the surprise of who had written to him each time.

In the most recent set of letters, he had the pleasure of hearing from Olive, whose chain-smoked cigar ash somehow got pressed into the letters again, the smell of cedar and coffee and whiskey making him so homesick he almost cried in his tent. Next, Vivian bemoaned the state of her adopted daughter, Monique, who was a hit with the neighborhood men and women and refused to settle down with just one, which was muddying the gossip pool of any useful information. Then, Lucy - the closest in age to Roy, and his favorite sister growing up - shared with him her many failed attempts at flirtation with the baker’s daughter across the street, and dearly wished her brother was there to help her. And finally, there was a last message from Danil, the baby of the family who still sometimes mixed up the Amestrian and Drachman alphabet and told Roy all about what she was learning in school. Her letters brought a much-needed breath of fresh air to this desert.

Roy tucked his letters in a secure pocket of his satchel, the one weather-proofed that he was meant to use to store his emergency rations. But these letters were the life preservers of his soul, where he plucked up the softest pieces of his humanity and hid them away to wait out the war. It was as much a survival tactic as going sharp and quiet for Hughes, or smoking for Hughes, or sleeping with Havoc for Rebecca, or pulling away for Riza ( _Major Hawkeye_ ).

But on his worst days, Roy studied his face in the mirror and wondered if his mother and sisters would recognize him. He felt he had aged years in this desert. Gaunt lines pulled at the corners of his eyes, around his mouth, wrinkled the smooth plane of his forehead. His eyes were shadowed and sunken, and there was a horrible cold and distance in them that he shared with his fellow soldiers.

He looked at hands that had shot and stabbed and wondered how he would ever be allowed to help roll Olive’s cigarettes, chop ingredients with Rita, tend bar with Alice or Molly, help Jingyi study for her university entrance examinations, braid Bianca’s hair, hold Danil’s hand crossing the street. How could he walk back into Madame Christmas’s bar and not expecting it to crumble to the ground? How could he slaughter civilians and go home and hug his mother? What cruelty, what gall, what _arrogance._

If there was any justice in this world - if there was any god - a lightning bolt would cut Roy down the second he placed a foot on the welcome mat.

And yet, as the days ran long and the nights longer and the missions and bullets and bodies piled up, there was nowhere else Roy wanted to go.

Roy only reunited with the Flame Alchemist once before the campaign of extermination concluded.

In the months between meeting her and seeing her again, he had heard every rumor ever imagined about the Flame-Witch _at least_ three times over. There were new ones, too: that the devil himself had crawled out of hell to gift her her powers. No, that she had _summoned_ the devil and sold her soul to loose his hellfire on Amestris. That she was in fact the devil’s lover, or wife, (or something), and she had taken human form to join their army and torch Ishval to the ground personally. That she was one of the bringers of an apocalypse. There were rumors she wasn’t human at all, just a flame spirit given human form as a result of a military lab experiment.

They said that when she walked the burning streets, she cried tears of blood. That she flew over the razed city streets on wings of fire. That when she snapped her fingers, she was surrounded by a sinister red glow. They said she used the souls of those she killed to fuel her power. That when she snapped her fingers, she was snuffing out a life and using it for her own purposes.

In short, people said a lot of ignorant, small-minded, cruel nonsense, and they all learned very quickly not to say any of it in front of Roy and his friends.

The Third Regiment was assigned to provide backup for General Grand, the Freeze Alchemist, and the Flame Alchemist to decimate the civilian population of Ranar. Roy never remembered the three-day drive out. It was as if he woke up in the morning and received these orders, and in the evening he stepped outside into the sand dunes outside the city.

The sun was setting on the other side of the city’s tall buildings, an oversized red orb halfway below the horizon. The buildings cut stark black figures through the skyline. Already, there were plumes of smoke rising in the city as the advance troops went in to start clearing the way for the infantry and alchemists. The snipers.

General Grand sent Roy a distant glare. The still-healing wound on his side twinged, and he shouldered his rifle and walked into the city.

He found an excellent vantage at the top of an old university belltower. Roy could picture young students coming up here for a break from their studies, to admire the sunset, to sneak a cigarette or drink, to steal a kiss with a sweetheart. And now the space was sullied by an Amestrian soldier making a sniper nest to cut them all down.

(And he did. Smoke in his eyes, bile in his throat, heart blackening and soul shriveling, he did.)

Night fell. The radio beside Roy’s head announced that the Alchemists were entering the city. Part of Roy wanted to turn his face away from the destruction they left in their paths. Another part of him demanded, _you look. You witness what your nation is doing. Remember this, remember them._

And because he was watching, he saw _her._

The Flame Alchemist stood at the center of a city square in front of a stone fountain older than all of their ages combined. The tinkling water caught the early rays of moonlight, turning the jets to flying glitter and the pool to molten silver. The Flame Alchemist was lit from behind by her flames from a block over. In the soft wind, the hair that had fallen from the bun Roy remembered floated softly around her shoulders. It was full of ash and soot.

She looked up, up, up at his belltower. There was no way she could have known he was there, just as there was no way Roy could know if he was actually looking into her eyes from here.

But he knew he was. So of course she knew he was the sniper watching over her.

Her lips moved. Roy frowned through the scope, trying to work out what she said. He realized it just as she lifted her hand, an odd red glow he did not recognize shimmering in her curled palm.

_Don’t look,_ she mouthed at him.

Roy did anyway.

The flames that exploded from her hands sent out a sonic boom that rattled Roy’s tower to its foundations. Every window in the square shattered inward from the force; the very bricks at her feet crumbled and blew away in a ripple effect of destruction. Flames licked the top of the two- and three-story buildings around the square. The little shrubs and trees, so carefully tended in this desert heat, curled into hunched, blackened figures.

In the center of it all, truly looking like an angel of death, like hellfire incarnate, stood Riza Hawkeye.

It was over in a matter of seconds. Roy at last felt the heat, face-searing and uncomfortable even from his distance. The Flame Alchemist stood in the middle of the maelstrom, her face carefully expressionless.

Slowly, she turned her head, angling it to look up at him in his perch. Her eyes were dark, hollow, shadowed. They looked like his.

The careful mask cracked, just for a moment. For a moment she looked like the lost, alone teenager she was, thrown on the front lines of a war she had no business being in. Used for her power like a machine.

A human weapon.

It was such a stark contrast to the shy woman who smiled at him over a shared, stolen bottle of wine, sharing a private joke, that he gasped in a soft breath. The heat in the air scorched the back of his throat and lungs.

Then the vulnerability was gone, her features smoothed like a pool of water smoothing after a ripple. Roy knew she knew he had seen. She ducked her head and walked on.

Roy cried so hard he was sick. This, too, was surviving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um. SO..... that was darker than i expected? i was writing and then this came out and. well. you see.  
> thank you so much for reading! or at least, thank you for slogging through.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> riza's time in ishval through the end of the campaign of extermination.  
> cw: suicidal ideation, PTSD/dissociation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a HUGE, MASSIVE thank you to the user WhiteDoveSails for betaing and your comments! You are helping me make something of this story and AU and I so, so appreciate it.

## 

chapter 5. 

The note addressed to _Mjr. Riza Hawkeye_ appeared in her bag as if by magic. She did not notice it until she and the other State Alchemists arrived at their next destination. In the privacy of her tent, where she managed a few bites of a questionable granola bar and some sips of her water, the wrinkled envelope fell to the ground to rest in the sand at her feet.

Her first thought was that this was an oddly understated rebel attack. Her next was that this was a cruel prank from the other alchemists or soldiers, someone who thought they would be proving something by addressing a mock love note to the Flame-Witch or earning an inordinate sum of money if they could slip this past her watchful eyes. It was cruel enough for Kimblee, but for all of his annoying and murderous attributes, he wasn’t the type to resort to subterfuge. If he had something to say to her, he would.

But then she thought of Ranar and the Third Regiment. She had caught flashes of the kind, strange group Riza shared a meal with. Rebecca, her left eye blackened and her wild, curly hair tied up in a businesslike bun, holding the line and firing their artillery into the city. Havoc, chomping on a cigarette, sliding noiselessly through the streets with a gun in his hands as he covered the Freeze Alchemist’s six. Hughes, separated from the combat but looking ready to tear his hair out as he was inundated with reports and movements. Mustang, watching over the destruction from on high, his dark eyes missing nothing and his gun always hitting its mark.

She didn’t see his face, but she didn’t need to. She felt his gaze on her like a sunbeam. She knew what he looked like, had it memorized like she had known him forever and not a night.

So Riza sat alone in her tent staring at the letter for nearly five minutes, parsing the unfamiliar slanted handwriting. Finally, because none of her questions would be answered until she bit the bullet and opened the darn thing, she reached for the seal. Her nails cracked easily through the plain wax and unfolded the paper.

_Major Hawkeye,_

_Imagine my surprise when my son wrote home to tell me that he had met the famed Flame Alchemist. I suppose the world is really quite small, and even smaller on a battlefield._

_Now, Roy didn’t tell me much about you, but I have a good ear for rumors and a better filter for nonsense than this old mug would give me credit for. A friend of my son’s is a child of mine, too, and my children receive letters from this old den mother, Major Hawkeye._

_No need to reply if you don’t want, though you’re welcome to if you like. I’m a nosy old woman with nothing to do but take in every little hell-beast that walks past my door and write letters; I’ll reply. You write if you need anything._

_Be safe. My door is open if you need a place to go once this is all over._

_Chris Mustang_

And below it, in larger, messier letters, the script composed of a mix of the Amestrian alphabet and what looked like the backwards-facing letters of Drachman -

_Hello, Miss Riza! My name is Danil and I am 6 years old, though my birthday is soon so I may be 7 when you read this. Roy said very nice things about you in his letters. People say scary things about you at school, but I don’t believe them. I think you’re strong and pretty (I saw you in the paper!). Mama said she would invite you to stay with us after the war if you want. I hope you do!_

_~~Sinceerely~~ Sincerely,_

_Dani Mustang_

Heavy, fat teardrops rolled down Riza’s nose, stinging her eyes and cutting tracks in the grime on her cheeks. They dripped from her chin and onto the page, blotting the words. Riza moved the letter quickly out of harm’s way, folding the paper into thirds and cradling it into her. She clutched it to her chest like a precious thing.

If anyone heard the Flame Alchemist sobbing by herself in her tent, no one ever said so.

~

A platter of food materialized in front of Riza’s dazed, unfocused eyes.

She blinked. Her nights recently had been long, interspersed with nightmares and sleep paralysis and bone-deep, aching _loneliness._ The latter was the only one that was new; she had had nightmares since her second week in Ishval, and had experienced occasional bouts of sleep paralysis since she was a child. But she had not realized how lonely she was until she shared dinner and drinks with the merry crew of the Third Regiment. Now it was her most constant companion, her closest bedfellow, dogging her steps through military camps and city streets.

She looked up, up, up, her neck craning as she found a massive chest under an enormous blue military jacket. The man above her had strong, handsome features that looked chiseled from stone and a shiny head bald save for a single blond cowlick in the center of his forehead.

“We missed you at dinner last night, Major,” the man said. “May I join you?”

Riza blinked once, twice. She mechanically nodded her head, too surprised and confused and tired to do anything else.

The man sat across from her, folding his massive body into the bench with surprising grace. She knew him vaguely as a fellow state alchemist, but for the life of her, she could not remember his name.

“Alex Louis Armstrong,” The man said. He held out a hand that was the size of Riza’s entire face, and Riza shook it on autopilot. The palm enveloping hers hinted at incredible strength, but he was conscientious of his power and only shook her hand firmly and gently. “The Strong-Arm Alchemist.”

Now Riza remembered him: a large, kind man, some five or six years her elder. He was the only alchemist she met so far who seemed to have a personality beyond “I am here to kill people” (Riza included herself in that category). He would level cities with two gauntleted fists in the morning and spend the afternoon helping rescue and transport any injured soldiers.

“Riza Hawkeye,” she said, as if he didn’t know that already. “Flame Alchemist.”

“It’s very nice to meet you officially,” Major Armstrong said, and the words and tone should have been pompous, but the genuine expression in his eyes turned the words from condescending to warm. Riza nodded and turned her attention to her meal: something that vaguely resembled eggs, two slices of toast, bacon. Riza prodded at her eggs and managed to take a bite. They tasted like congealed powder. She snatched up a nearby napkin and spat the mouthful out.

“Are you unwell, Major?” Major Armstrong asked. His voice was too loud and his face was so damn _expressive._ Riza could sense people turning in the direction of his booming voice and she ducked her head.

“I’m fine. I’m not hungry,” Riza said. She sensed more questions and protestations coming and picked up some toast to appease him. She took a bite and forced herself to chew, swallow, even if it tasted like sand.

This seemed to satisfy Major Armstrong, and she finished her meal with the sound of his voice washing over her as he talked at her. Riza appreciated what he was trying to do, but she rather wished he would just go away. If he talked to her, then she would need to talk back. To talk back, she needed to think. And thinking led to feeling, and if she felt, even for a second - if she felt anything aside from this gnawing, tingling numbness, this aching loneliness in her self-imposed shell, if she thought about what she was doing…

She would scream and scream and never stop.

So Riza sat and smiled and gave vague, meaningless answers and let Major Armstrong think he was doing something kind. Maybe he was. It wasn’t his fault he was speaking to a broken automaton. And like a good automaton, she smiled and nodded and said a few phrases like “oh” and “hmm” and “I see.” She walked where her leaders told her to go and killed who they pointed her at.

Major Armstrong bid her adieu (not _goodbye,_ he really said _adieu,_ and that was so unexpected and sweet that Riza really did smile, just for a moment, and her dry, dehydrated lips cracked and bled from the movement) and went on his way. Riza walked to the drop-off station with her food and went to scrape her mostly-empty plate.

“Salt, Major.”

Riza startled in her own way: she went still and stiff and for a moment did not move. Then she looked to her left and saw Major Kimblee standing some feet from her. He had one hand on his hip, his head tilted as he examined her like she was an interesting bug he had found under a rock.

Riza turned towards him. “I beg your pardon?”

“No begging necessary.” She did not like the smile Kimblee levied at her. She could not put a finger on why it unnerved her so - it was not lusty or predatory. His cold eyes did not flicker suggestively over her form. But there was an expression of rapt fascination that left her skin wanting to crawl off of her body and hide in the sand under her feet. Major Kimblee went on, “If you’re struggling to eat because of nausea. A little salt on bread goes a long way.”

Riza hesitated. She didn’t like that he had noticed that she was struggling to eat, that he had deduced why she wasn’t coming to meals. But she only nodded once, a short jerk of her chin. “Thank you, Major.”

Kimblee smiled in that disquieting way again. “You’re needed here on the front, Miss Alchemist. Can’t have you wasting away.”

He left her with that, stepping around her and maintaining a respectful distance of exactly two feet between their bodies. Somehow, Riza managed to do a full-body shudder without moving a muscle.

Riza’s next mission - her next _target_ \- was a city called Mechla. It was half a day’s drive north. This was the pattern her life had fallen into: wake up, force down a weak breakfast, travel to her next destination, destroy it, swallow a few bites of dinner, lay in her tent staring at her ceiling, sleep, wake up from nightmares, doze again. Sometimes she partnered with another alchemist or two. Her most recent mission had been the elimination (the _genocide)_ of a large civilian population in Katat, where she worked in tandem with the Crimson and Strong-Arm Alchemists.

With every city eliminated, Riza was sent further north. Perhaps to the east or west, but always _north._ Riza followed her trajectory on her little map in her tent and already knew where this was going: Ishval, the capital. A historic and religious focal point of Ishvalan culture, the fabled birthplace of the goddess Ishvala. A metropolis comparable with Central City, its population boasting over a million people.

 _They want you to kill a million people,_ Riza thought with wordless horror. _They want you to kill a million people, and you are going to do it._

Maybe not, Riza debated with herself. Maybe the war would end before then (it wouldn’t). Maybe the people would escape, and she would not have a million souls on her conscience (but that did not soothe her, not when her fingers and soul already dripped blood with every step she took, not when her death count already numbered in the thousands). Maybe she would be assigned somewhere else (she would not). Maybe she would be dead by then, and the point would be moot (maybe, maybe, _maybe?)._

“Major Hawkeye.”

Riza blinked from her silent panic and met the gaze of the private who addressed her. This one was looking her in the eye and didn’t seem on the verge of shitting himself in fear of speaking to her, at least, which put him head and shoulders above any of the others who addressed her.

He had dark hair and dark eyes, and for a moment her heart froze. For a moment, she felt something.

Then the moment passed. This private’s hair was too short, his eyes too round. Disappointment suckerpunched her in the stomach, all the stronger for its unexpected blow.

“Yes, private?” She asked.

He saluted her. “The caravan to Mechla is leaving, sir. Miss.”

Riza stood and clicked her heels. She saluted him back like the good little automaton she was. “Sir, private. Thank you.”

“Yes, sir,” the private said, and he jogged off.

Riza inhaled. The hot air stung her nose. She hitched her bag higher over her shoulders and boarded the nearby truck. She sat in the far corner, her back and shoulder pressed to the truck’s metal sides and her bag between her knees like she was trying to take up as little space as possible. Maybe she was. The soldiers assigned to back her up did not try to speak to her, nor did she to them. Riza closed her eyes and lay her temple against the hot, vibrating metal of the truck wall and tried not to think of anything at all.

~

There was one grace gifted to the Flame-Witch during her cold rampages through the streets: she never remembered them.

After her first time decimating a city - killing to kill, not to protect herself or put down insurgents - Riza’s mind took to turning off completely the moment she stepped out of the truck bed. She hopped down onto sand. She took a deep breath of arid desert air and closed her eyes to adjust to the high noon sun. When she opened her eyes, night had fallen, and her hair was choked with soot and her gloves were blackened from smoke. Some days her military jacket was spattered with dirt or sand or ash or blood.

Some moments snapped her from her fugue - a rebel jumping to attack _(a survivor fighting for their life)._ A building nearly collapsing on her head, courtesy of Kimblee. Mustang watching her from on high, sniper’s eyes following every move the Flame-Witch made.

Some nights they went to a nearby military base to eat real food or maybe even get a real shower. Others they pitched camp on the desert plain or holed up in the crumbling husks of buildings, taking out the bodies like old furniture. This was one of those nights: there was a sandstorm blowing in, so their group retreated into the desolate, empty buildings to let it pass. Riza took a tiny abandoned apartment at the top of a nearby building. Judging by the dust, the place was long abandoned. Food sat molding on the counters and in pantries, and the blankets in the closet were moth-eaten and musty. The bed was neatly made, but Riza rolled out her bedroll and blankets and set up near the window. Before the Amestrian army, this apartment had a quaint balcony that overlooked the plains to the west, promising spectacular daily sunsets. Now, all Riza could see from this window was a sheer drop down four stories from the shattered stone and miles of smoking, crumbling buildings.

Riza tucked herself against the wall, letting the moonlight wash over her face. It was bright enough she could read the letters from Mustang’s aunt without needing to light a candle. She traced the words with her fingers. _A friend of my son’s is a child of mine, too, and my children receive letters from this old den mother. Be well. My door is open. Roy said very nice things about you in his letters. People say scary things about you at school, but I don’t believe them._

Riza mouthed the words and knew them by heart. She traced the B in _be well,_ the curly-cue M in _mother,_ the R in _Roy._

It was exquisite torture, reading these letters and imagining a world where this den mother would allow this monster given flesh quarter in her home. That she would allow the Flame-Witch anywhere near her seven-year-old daughter or any of her other eleven children. But some nights, Riza imagined she had somewhere to go when this was all over.

Whenever those dreams started to feel too real, Riza squashed them down. She would remove her philosopher’s stone from her pocket: hers was smooth, shaped like a teardrop. It had a notch in the top like it was supposed to be hung from a necklace. But Riza did not like touching it if she could avoid it. The one time she did, she learned it was uncommonly warm. It shuddered in her hand as if it had a heartbeat independent of her own. It left her feeling a heady warmth behind her breastbone and a buzzing in her fingertips like she was once again sitting beside a bonfire, sharing a bottle of stolen wine.

Riza’s first instinct had been to throw the thing as hard and as far as she could, to crush it under her boot, to snap her fingers and light it aflame. She brutally suppressed the urge and instead tucked it wordlessly into her pocket.

Riza studied it now, after she put the letters back into her bag. The philosopher’s stone shone with an eerie light all its own. When she turned it in the moonlight, it shimmered as if refracting along dozens of faces. But when she ran her fingers over its surface, the stone remained polished smooth.

Some moments, when Riza stared into the stone, she swore she saw something swirling in unfathomable depths - like glitter floating in viscous liquid, like smoke condensed into a tiny space. Looking at it for too long left her feeling dizzy.

_(“‘The philosopher’s stone, the alchemist’s stone, the Red Stone, the Fifth Element, the Grand Elixir…’” Riza read aloud. “‘Whatever its name, the fabled philosopher’s stone allegedly enhances an alchemist’s abilities beyond compare, even bypassing the law of equivalent exchange.’ Is that true, father?”_

_Her father was in an unusually good mood this fine morning. He only scoffed softly at the book. “There is nothing in this world that allows an alchemist to sidestep the law of equivalent exchange, Riza. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or selling something.”_

_“But…” Riza screwed her nose as she tried to put her question into words. “How do we know if it’s never been made? Or found? There was a time that we thought alchemy was impossible. Who’s to say that this philosopher’s stone is impossible, too?”_

_Berthold Hawkeye chortled softly. “So many questions. These are excellent attributes in an alchemist. Question, hypothesis, experiment, conclusion. These are our ways. But consider: in your quest for knowledge, how far are you willing to go? What are you willing to do? What are you willing to sacrifice?”)_

Riza tucked the stone back into her pocket and lay on her back, throwing a forearm over her eyelids to block out the moonbeam and try to sleep. Her father decided what he was willing to pay for knowledge, and he tallied the price on his daughter’s back.

_What did you sacrifice, Amestris? When will the scales balance back? When will Ishval come to collect?_

~

“Major?”

The word came to Riza as if from a vast distance. Her vision swam like she was underwater. Her head was too warm in that way that preceded a fainting spell. Sluggishly, Riza turned in the direction of the speaker. It was a sergeant she did not know (why did she bother to differentiate? There were only a few people she could recognize by sight out here, and they were scattered to the sands).

The sergeant reached toward her as if to grab at her arm. He stopped his movement before his gloved hand came into contact with her arm. “Major Hawkeye, you’re bleeding.”

It took a moment for Riza to understand what the sergeant said. She looked down at herself, calmly taking stock of her extremities. No pain in her head, her torso, her legs. Her knees shook under her, just a little. And now that it was brought to her attention, her arm was sore and aching. She looked down and saw her right arm painted red.

“So I am,” Riza said. “Thank you, sergeant.”

She saluted him with her injured arm without thinking and left without another word. Already she could imagine the rumors: the Flame-Witch really was as inhuman as they said. She hadn’t even noticed she was injured, and she did not even react when it was brought to her attention. She only walked calmly to the medical tent, casual as coffee.

The med tent was a busy mess of yelling soldiers and bustling doctors. Riza watched them come and go, arms full of bandages, syringes, antiseptic, towels, needles, like she was watching a video.

“What the hell happened to you, major?”

Riza looked up from where she was sitting patiently, waiting for the next available doctor. A man stood above her. He was in his forties. Everything about him was square - his haircut, his wire-rimmed glasses, his jawline, his boxy shoulders. Riza knew him, but could not place him. Her thoughts were muddled. Her throat was dry.

He had asked a question. What was it? She couldn’t remember.

The doctor bent over some. His eyes were gray behind his spectacles. “Major? Can you hear me?”

Riza opened her mouth to speak but she struggled to find her voice. She nodded instead. It left her head feeling like it was spinning forward from the momentum, even though she was sitting still.

The doctor frowned down at her. Then he said, “Major, will you come with me? I want to check out your injuries.”

Riza nodded again. The doctor offered a hand, but Riza ignored it and followed him into a quiet side room. This room was cool, quiet, and Riza wondered why there were black bags and tags everywhere, and what that _smell_ in the air was -

“Major?”

Riza’s attention snapped back to the doctor. He said, “My name is Doctor Knox. You’re in the autopsy room.”

“Am I dead?” Riza asked.

Dr. Knox sent her a bitter grin. “Not yet. And you’re not near it, that I can see. You’ve got some glass and shrapnel in your arm, but that’ll come out easily. You’re in the autopsy room because I work here. I thought some place quiet and peaceful would help you feel better.”

Riza shrugged. “I’m surrounded by death all day as it is.”

Dr. Knox snorted. “Can’t argue with that.” He studied her arm. “I’m going to have to cut off your sleeve. That alright?”

Riza nodded. It was easier to nod, rather than try to think to speak. Dr. Knox found a pair of scissors and gently started snipping along the seams of her military jacket. Up the underside of her arm, around her shoulder. A few pieces of glass embedded in her arm shifted, and she winced.

“Did I hurt you?” Dr. Knox asked.

“I have a high pain tolerance.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Riza met Dr. Knox’s gaze. She broke their eye contact first. “The glass just moved a little. I’m fine.”

“Alright.” Dr. Knox found a stool and rolled it over, along with a tray of materials. Riza could see tweezers, antiseptic, and bandages. “I’m going to start plucking these out. If I hurt you, tell me. I don’t care how high your pain tolerance is. There’s no need to make you suffer more.”

“Isn’t there?” Riza asked flatly. She stared ahead at the sea of black bags in front of her. Had she killed them in the crossfire? Were they killed by rebels? Was it her fault the war wasn’t over yet, because she hadn’t completed her orders to exterminate yet? Did these Amestrian deaths counterbalance the Ishvalan lives she destroyed? How many had she saved with her preemptive strikes? How many did she need to save to balance her scales?

Dr. Knox was quiet as he worked. For a while, Riza wondered if she hadn’t spoken aloud at all. She said nothing as he slowly drew out splinters of metal and glass from her bicep. The injuries ran from elbow to shoulder, and while they hurt dully, most had not gone deep enough to severely tear the muscle. Some might need stitches, Riza mused, but overall she did not anticipate any long-lasting negative effects.

“I’m going to tell you something, Major Hawkeye,” Dr. Knox said finally. “And I would appreciate it if you kept this between us. I’d rather not have my sorry ass court-martialed if I can avoid it.”

Riza swallowed. She did not like that opening, but she had her gloves on her hands if anything untoward happened. She said, “What is it?”

Dr. Knox threaded his suture kit and applied a local anaesthetic to her skin. As he waited for it to take effect, he said, “This war is not your fault.”

Riza blinked, not expecting that statement. Dr. Knox went on, “There are lots of opinions I can share about _whose_ fault the war is, but that won’t help you right now. But this war wasn’t started by, nor will it be ended by, a twenty-year-old State Alchemist.”

“I’m nineteen,” Riza corrected him, her lips as numb as her arm. Dr. Knox laughed humorlessly.

“Nineteen years old and on a battlefront. What a fucking country.” Dr. Knox finished suturing this cut and moved to another. “I’m not telling you not to blame yourself, or not to carry the weight of the deaths you cause with you. I’ve no doubt you will. I _hope_ you will, that you’ll remember this. But this war is not your fault, Major Hawkeye. Don’t add that to your conscience, too.”

He started bandaging her arm. Steady hands applied gauze and started rolling the bandages around her bicep. Riza asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

Dr. Knox grimaced. “Because I’ve seen many eyes like yours, Major Hawkeye. But usually they’re looking up at me from my table. Maybe I don’t want to come into work tomorrow and find you there next.”

Riza wasn’t sure how to take that. She had heard a lot about the eyes of killers since she came out here. The rumors said her eyes flickered with hellfire when she walked the streets, that they were dry and red and never cried. But never had she been told her eyes resembled a corpse’s.

“Your bedside manner leaves something to be desired, doctor,” Riza said quietly. Dr. Knox glanced up at her and his eyes narrowed for a long moment. Riza braced herself for more of his crankiness, but to her surprise he slapped his knee and laughed loudly.

“Little spitfire, huh?” he asked. “Reminds me of my wife in younger days. You keep that going, alright? And I’ll see you in a few days to get those stitches out. Keep them clean and dry, and don’t scratch the stitches as they heal.”

“I may be transferred,” Riza told him softly. “The front keeps moving.”

“Doesn’t it,” Dr. Knox grumbled. He shucked a hand through his hair. “Then make sure you get those taken out in _no more than a week._ By an _actual_ doctor, none of that cowboy field medicine bullshit where you go at it with a bottle of scotch and a bushwhacker.”

“Where are you finding scotch out here?” Riza asked. Dr. Knox snorted back a laugh and waved her out of the room.

“Only my dreams. You take care, spitfire.”

Riza walked out of the autopsy room, wondering at the lightness in her step and the pinching in her cheeks. Only then did she realize she was smiling.

Smiling as she exited the autopsy room with bodies piled high in black bags. The expression slid off her face like grease as she was met with baleful glares and murmurs of her fellow soldiers. She ducked her chin and half-ran back to her tent to change.

~

The screaming did not snap Riza from her fugue.

Nor was it the yelling, the jostling, the blowing sand or the ground trembling below her feet. Smoke stung her nostrils and soot clotted in her hair and she felt none of it.

What jerked her from her reverie was the single bellowing yell:

_“WHY?”_

Riza turned toward the sound on autopilot. She saw two familiar figures in the husk of the street: Major Armstrong, on his knees, cradling the body of an Ishvalan child into his chest as tenderly as one would for a newborn infant. His face was ashen, desolate, utterly overcome with grief. The pain was written into every line of his sculpted face.

Standing above him was Major Kimblee. His hands were in his pockets as he looked down his nose at Armstrong. He seemed bored as he observed this display.

“Are you quite done, Strong-Arm?”

Major Armstrong glared at Major Kimblee. Rage was etched into every pore in his face as he demanded, “How can you stand this, Crimson? How do you live with yourself among this slaughter? How -” His voice broke. His back heaved in fresh sobs and he wrapped the broken body of the child in his enormous military jacket. “- How can you do this? How can _we_ do this?”

Kimblee rolled his eyes skyward. “Did you _really_ think you could be a State Alchemist and keep your hands clean? Did you think your family name and noble lineage would somehow insulate you from the battlefield? Or were you truly so naive as to hope your country wouldn’t make good on its word and demand you to serve as its human weapon?”

He stepped closer to Major Armstrong’s collapsed form. The plaza was full of the silence only death and the most fraught of tense situations created. Major Kimblee spoke at his usual volume, but in the horrible quiet his calm, even tone was worse than the loudest yell.

“I do this because these are my orders, and I have the fortitude to follow through on them. I will not weep for those I kill, so I do not weep for myself. Give the people you kill the dignity of not regretting their deaths. Look this boy in the eye and know you killed him, Strong-Arm. And if you cannot live with that, then accept the dishonorable discharge and leave space for someone who _can_ be here. Goodness, even the _Rockbells_ had the nerve to follow through on their ideals, though it killed them in the end. You’re lucky no one else is around to witness your little display.”

Kimblee looked around the empty plaza. His gaze met Riza’s. A cold smile flickered over his face and he inclined his chin towards her in a courteous greeting.

“I stand corrected,” he said. “What do you think, Miss Alchemist?”

Riza wanted to open her mouth. She needed to say _something._ But her lips would not move, her throat would not work. It felt like an anvil was sitting on her chest, like phantom hands were reaching into her windpipe and squeezing. She could not speak.

It was like her worst moments of sleep paralysis come to her in the middle of the day.

“Hm,” Kimblee observed. “Nothing to say? That’s rather disappointing.”

“Leave her alone, Crimson,” Major Armstrong snapped. His blue eyes narrowed. “Your quarrel is with me.”

“Is it?” Kimblee asked. “This seems like a State Alchemist issue. What say you on this blubbering display, Miss Alchemist?”

Riza wanted to open her mouth, to say - _say what, what can you say? You can’t agree with Kimblee but you can’t side with Armstrong. You haven’t sunk as low as the one but you’ve nothing like the morality of the other. You can’t risk a court-martial because then you’d lose whatever control and structure and independence you have in your life now, but what does a court-martial matter when your soul is dripping blood and you’re damned, damned, damned if you do and if you don’t. You’ve been damned from the moment you took your exam, put on this uniform, held the philosopher's stone, snapped your fingers. You damn yourself every single day you get up and do it again._

She couldn’t support Amstrong’s outburst, but nor could she side with Kimblee, not when she was just as guilty in his estimation _(the sun shining in her eyes, cursing this useless sniper’s insubordination, rounding a corner and meeting a man who was nothing like the cocksure, suspect asshole she assumed he was -- meeting a man with messy hair and an easy smile and warm eyes, and he was kind enough and brave enough to do some good in this desert)._ Not when she helped smuggle two innocent civilians and swore herself to secrecy under the promise of mutually assured destruction.

Riza wanted to speak, but she couldn't, she couldn’t, she _couldn’t._

“It’s alright, Major Hawkeye.”

Major Armstrong gently set the child down - head facing west, so Ishvala could pluck up their little hand on her trek across the sky and lead their soul home with her when she returned to rest after her long day. Riza heard him murmur a soft Amestrian prayer and rise to his feet. He dwarfed Major Kimblee by a foot, but he paid the Crimson Alchemist no mind. Major Armstrong sidestepped the man and approached Riza.

Up close, Major Armstrong was a mess: skin red and burned, blue eyes shadowed by deep, heavy circles, tears and snot turning his cheeks wet and ruddy.

He did not need to say anything. He and Riza both knew that this would be the last time they saw each other before the end of the war.

“Be well, Major Hawkeye.”

Riza’s mouth worked, and this time, she could produce just a little sound: “Thanks.”

Major Armstrong’s heavy footfalls over crushed stone faded. The plaza fell again into silence. Riza’s feet felt glued to the ground as she watched Kimblee duck his head, thin lips moving. To her surprise, she faintly heard him murmuring an Ishvalan prayer for the dead.

When he finished, he turned to her. He smiled coldly, the expression meeting his unshadowed eyes. It was off-putting to see a man who could sleep well in this war. It was the most terrifying thing she had seen since she came to the front a year ago.

(A year, it’s been a year - a year since her father died and she joined the military, either as a massive fuck you to his memory or to find some use for the flame alchemy carved into her spine, some life direction. A year since her first kill, a year since she last saw rain.)

“If I am to kill every last Ishvalan,” Major Kimblee said to her, “The least I can do is learn their funeral rites.”

Major Kimblee inclined his chin in farewell, as if he were a gentleman tipping his cap to a passing lady on the street. His coattails fluttered behind him as he turned and walked in the opposite direction. Riza stood alone in the decimated plaza as the sun sent rays of orange and yellow across the destroyed mosaics. Fractured glass sparkled along the ground, refracting light and glittered red, blue, green.

Riza breathed in, closing her eyes. When she opened them, she was outside the city, and the sky was the navy-purple blend of twilight. Her nose stung from smoke and her jacket reeked of smoke and human decay.

~

“This is our final stand,” General Grand said as he pointed out their assigned routes on his enormous map of Ishval. “Have you any questions?”

Riza did not. Nor did Major Kimblee, who was sitting on the far end of her row, one leg crossed over the other and his arms folded over his chest as he studied the map with casual interest as if he was in a museum. Major Comanche was eagerly adding his route to his own personal map, his tattooed hands releasing slivers of fine silver filigree over the miniature city streets. Major MacDougal sat in a similar position to Kimblee, his arms folded over his chest, but he appeared mutinously silent rather than interested or eager or thoughtful. There was a smattering of other alchemists Riza vaguely knew the calls signs of, but aside from some last-minute logistical questions and clarifications, there was no more news to impart. General Grand sent them off with what was surely a grand speech, but Riza barely heard it. The artillery would attack the city at 0600 hours sharp in the morning, and the state alchemists, as usual, would make their entrance as 1200 hours exactly.

There was a sense of controlled chaos in the military base surrounding Ishval’s last stronghold. Soldiers bustled around her, moving supplies and carrying out orders and preparing for what many assumed were the last night of their lives. Riza found herself looking for, hoping for, dreading the sight of a shock of bushy dark hair, a lit cigarette clenched in a tight jaw, the glint of light over square-rimmed glasses, the glow of a gun barrel as its owner oiled it before the coming battle. But Riza saw neither hide nor hair of the Third Regiment.

 _What are you doing?_ Riza wondered. _What are you looking for? What are you hoping for?_ There was no one coming to find her, to comfort her or save her. And if someone was, she would have turned them away. She would have sent them home to Central with Major Armstrong. She would have asked them what they were doing, coming to her, when there was a city full of people who needed saving tonight. She would have been caught between laughing or yelling or crying, if she could have produced a sound.

Riza went to her tent and sat numbly on her cot. It squeaked under her weight, the aluminum frame digging into her legs. She had lost weight, Riza mused - there was less meat on her thighs. Her clothes had been growing slowly but steadily looser as the months passed. Riza dug into her bag and pulled out her rations. With the war ending in the morning, she feasted on the last of her rations: hard tack and beef jerky and tough dried fruit. Then Riza lay down and stared at the canvas ceiling of her tent, waiting for sleep or dawn to come.

Dawn found her first.

~

Riza’s father had not only taught her alchemy.

Berthold Hawkeye was a scholar through and through. Though he excelled in chemistry, alchemy, mathematics, physics, and Latin, he demanded perfection in all of her studies: history, culture, religion, logic, literature. One of the classical works that stuck in Riza’s growing psyche was the tale of a founding philosopher who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for godlike power until his natural death. Wanting the philosopher to understand what damnation he was trading his soul for, the devil took the philosopher on a tour of each circle of hell. At the end, the devil asked, _now that you have all of the information, will you make this exchange with me?_

The philosopher said yes.

But with godlike power came the animosity, revulsion, and fear that accompanied it. At the end of the story, the philosopher killed himself, and the devil dragged him to the deepest circle of hell for breaking their contract.

As a child, Riza thought that the moral of the story was about equivalent exchange and how alchemy could take as well as give and create. When she grew older, she thought it was about the dangers of mortals tampering with forces beyond their comprehension.

Now, as an adult, Riza wondered if it was a warning: as a soul could be sent to hell, so could hell come to torment the living.

Riza would only ever remember Ishval in brief flashes. The hot sun. The sand scalding the soles of her feet. The sky turning red from the smoke. The ground shaking beneath her. The philosopher’s stone in her hand echoing in the off-beats of her heart. Her skin grimy with sweat and soot and blood, her hair clumping from the ash. The screams, the screams, the _screams -_

Like the philosopher, Riza knew there was a circle in hell reserved just for her and her fellow alchemists.

~

They had won.

 _Won_ was not the right word, of course. It was a military victory, to be sure. By definition, by virtue of destruction and people and attrition, Amestris was victorious. And many soldiers certainly drank and partied and caroused like they had vanquished some great enemy.

But Riza floated back into camp like a wisp. She showered and changed and submitted her status report to General Grand. But she did not _remember_ it. There was a weight on her chest that crushed her fragile, scorched lungs and squeezed her windpipe shut. She wanted to speak, to say something, to weep and cry and scream. But she was speechless.

She patched up her own burns and sipped her water and let Dr. Knox glance at her healing arm. He looked like he had aged decades in the weeks since she saw him last, his face haggard and beard patchy. He offered the ghost of the woman he called _spitfire_ a sip from his flask, and when she shook her head, shrugged and knocked his flask back instead. He had nothing more to say or to offer her. He had lots of research to do, he said gruffly. Riza had single-handedly advanced the field of burn medicine and death via flame by years, and it had fallen to Dr. Knox to find methods in her madness.

Soldiers were gathering in Ishval as Amestris coalesced its control of the region. Medical care and rousing speeches in the day melded into uproarious parties at night. Riza took to wandering, helping in what cleanup efforts she could (not that there were many, not when Amestris was more interested in spinning its story and celebrating and tallying its own dead. It did not care for the corpse of a nation it pillaged and colonized even now).

For all her battlefield fame, however, the Flame-Witch was remarkably unpopular when it came to facing her fellow soldiers one-on-one. Most were wary. Many were fearful. A few outright hated her, for her gender or her power. Some quoted scripture at her like she was a demon to exorcise.

On the last day when the last train was leaving, the Fuhrer gave a final rousing speech. He said some very grandiose things for a man who did not raise his sword or fire a single shot in his war. He introduced her as _the Flame-Alchemist, the first female alchemist in twenty years, the youngest ever alchemist,_ as if anyone didn’t know. General Grand pinned three medals to her lapel. Major Comanche glared at her when he only got one and an honorable discharge for his injury. Major Kimblee smiled at her and looked _impressed_ by the destruction she wrought with her fingers.

Riza stumbled away from the final get-together the moment she could escape. She had four hours before the last train left for Central. Due to her especially meritorious service, Riza was granted a full six months leave before she was due to report to Central Command for her next placement.

Six months to heal. Six months to put herself together again. Four hours to decide where she would spend them.

Riza wandered the streets in a daze. She found herself in an area that was more rubble and building. It definitely had not been cleared for foot traffic, but Riza just needed to move. To walk. Anything to get herself out of her head.

A familiar odor met her nose. She wrinkled her nose, fighting back a sneeze, and looked around for its source.

A small, empty-eyed face peered at her through the debris.

The next thing Riza knew, she was on her knees beside the body. She was too late, far too late for this child, but - _but -_

Her fingers scrabbled at the ground, shoving clumps and handfuls of rocky, sandy soil aside. Her white gloves stained brown and black from dirt and cinders. The metal inlays in her fingertips dug into her skin, chafing and scraping and Riza grit her teeth against the pain, against _feeling,_ because if she thought, if she felt…

She managed to dig a shallow hole of appropriate size. Biting back a gag, Riza gently lifted the child’s body and lay them carefully, gently in the grave. She wished she had something to bury this child with, a warm blanket or something soft to lay them in. But she had less than nothing to offer. Riza lay the child on their back, head pointing west and their left arm (the one closest to the heart) extended above their head for Ishvala to pluck up at the end of the day. The stiff body protested her maneuvering, but damn it, she _needed_ to do this.

Riza quickly shifted the dirt back over the body, creating a sandy pile that she reinforced against animals with stones. She swallowed a rising lump in her throat and ducked her head. Her lips mouthed a noiseless prayer for the departed.

When she finished she tried to force feeling into her limbs. She needed to get up and go. The train was leaving in two hours, and she was hopelessly lost in these streets. She needed to figure out what to do next. Her knees remained locked as the uneven ground dug into her kneecaps. Riza clutched her hands in the loose material of her pant legs.

_What now? What now? Dear God, what now?_

“Major Hawkeye?”

Riza’s first thought was she was hallucinating. She was tired, stressed, dehydrated enough to believe it. But her hallucinations were of shadowy, spectral, silent figures, looming threateningly above her. They did not speak softly and tentatively. They did not make the lump of rock in her chest jump.

Slowly, Riza turned in place on the ground, her legs folding beneath her. There stood Sergeant Mustang, too exhausted and sunburned to be just a figment of her imagination. His face was lined with patchy stubble, his skin pallid and gaunt. His eyes resembled hers: heavy and dry and haunted. His gun was wrapped for travel and carefully slung over one broad shoulder.

He kneeled in front of her. He tilted his head, studying her for injuries and changes the way she examined him. Up close she could see the sweat on his forehead, the bandages on one cheek and fading bruises. She could smell the gunpowder that clung to his uniform, sharp and tangy and metallic in a way blood wasn’t. It was like breathing in a gust of fresh, cool air.

“Major Hawkeye?” Sergeant Mustang probed again. “Can you hear me?”

 _Of course I can hear you,_ Riza thought. Though from her lack of a response and the rates of injured hearing from the war, it was a reasonable question. She opened her mouth to speak, but her throat spasmed. She snapped her mouth shut and only nodded.

“What are you doing here?”

Riza shrugged one shoulder and waved a hand behind her. If he couldn’t recognize a makeshift grave, then she wondered what he had been doing in his three years out here. Sergeant Mustang glanced over her shoulder and his face softened. “You dug a grave.” His gaze flicked down. “With your bare hands.”

Riza looked down at her filthy, shredded gloves. Blood on was pooling on the tips of her fingers. Stupidly, feeling unaccountably ashamed of _everything,_ Riza folded her arms over her chest and tucked her hands under her armpits. Her bangs swung over her eyes to form a wavy curtain.

“Are you hurting? Mustang asked. Riza made no move to reply. He hesitated. “Are you having trouble talking?”

Riza looked down at her knees. The sand was staining her pant legs tan. She swallowed hard and nodded once.

To her surprise, Mustang huffed out the softest, saddest laugh she had ever heard. Riza’s head snapped up and met his gaze. His eyes matched hers, _met_ hers. The eyes of a hurting man, demons eating him from the inside out. He looked at her like she was any other woman.

"I can only imagine."

Roy Mustang did not hate her or fear her or pity her. He only seemed to consider something briefly before he asked, “Major Hawkeye, do you know where you’re going after today?”

Riza’s mouth almost fell open. How did he - how _dare_ he - had someone -? Did he know her circumstances? Was there some gossip about her that she didn’t know about floating around?

But he only waited patiently, his eyes open and guileless and so unlike her own and _so kind_ that Riza’s throat closed again. She swallowed, hard, and shook her head.

“Would you like to stay with my family and me in Central for some time?” Sergeant Mustang asked. He was staring over her shoulder at the grave when he spoke. “I know my aunt invited you to stay if you needed to. I swear she meant it. We have plenty of room, though it will be louder than you’re used to, from the restaurant and the clientele and twelve sisters.” He chuckled again, and that homesickness was back, and Riza knew she was not imagining that bitter, anxious note to the sound, too. She wanted to laugh with him. She wanted to frown, to take away anything that made him sound like that. The feeling came and died so quickly it made Riza nearly shudder with a thrill of shock and fear. Sergeant Mustang continued, “We have the room, is all I mean.”

Riza should have said no. She could not intrude upon his family, could not impede this man’s reunion with his family or his own healing. The three medals pinned to his chest - matching her in number of accolades if not honor - hinted that he had as much to digest as she. She hadn't even written his mother back.

But Roy Mustang only looked at her and held out a hand to help her to her feet. He looked unlike any man she had ever known in that moment: honest and true and warm and _good._ It left her feeling safe. He looked at this murderer and invited her into his home, because she was a stranger but he _trusted_ her.

And Riza...against all reason and logic, Riza trusted him, too.

After another moment of hesitation, Riza nodded again and clasped her hand in his. His palm was warm, all sun-browned skin and calluses she could feel through her gloves. He gently tugged her to her feet.

In the distance, the first train whistle sounded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading!! i know it's been a bit since my last update; i've been finishing up my other royai fic for royai week, _once._ please check it out if you haven't seen it!!
> 
> HOW do you write kimblee???????
> 
> the story riza references is a blend of _faust_ and dante's _inferno._
> 
> thank you again!! as always, you can reach out to chat on tumblr at notantherwritingblog.tumblr.com!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> roy and riza return from ishval, part i. 
> 
> CW: PTSD/panic attacks, discussions of xenophobia, mentions of suicidality, brief mention of self-harm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello thank you for your patience!! again, a huge thank you to WhiteDoveSails for reviewing and betaing! your ideas and commentary elevate this story and make me think of new things i never would on my own. thank you so very much! 😃
> 
> also, a glossary of roy's huge family and their ages:  
> Aunt Chris, 55  
> Penny, 45  
> Olive, 40  
> Alice, 37  
> Vivian, 35  
> Daughter, Monique, 14   
> Molly, 33  
> Caroline, 29  
> Daughter, Sophia, 5  
> Lucy, 25  
> Roy, 22  
> Bai Jie, 18  
> Jingyi, 15  
> Valeria, 10  
> Bianca, 8  
> Danil, 7  
> Inez, 4

## 

chapter 6.

Major Hawkeye’s muteness lasted for their entire train ride. Roy was not surprised, nor did he judge her. There were certainly some moments he wondered what would happen if he opened his mouth. Would he scream, yell, cry? Swear a blue streak all across the countryside, curse and forswear god? Would the smoke from the barrel of his gun trickle from his mouth? Would he forever leave black smudges of gunpowder like filthy handprints on every surface he touched?

But usually, when he opened his mouth, the words that came out were quiet and calm. It helped to have someone else to focus on, even for a little while. They would arrive at Aunt Chris’s in three days, and from there Roy knew Major Hawkeye would be safe in his sisters’ tender hands. Then his family would set their sights on him, and they would realize they had not one but two strangers in their midst.

They had a compartment to themselves on their way west - the rest of Roy’s division had gone on ahead, transferring elsewhere as their Regiment was disbanded. Hughes and Catalina were back in Central, and Havoc was with his family in the eastern countryside. He offered his family home to them on their second night of travel.

Roy learned quickly that while Major Hawkeye may have been mute, she was by no means vacant. She pulled a small medical kit from her bag and slowly peeled off her gloves, wincing slightly from the pain. Roy watched, horrified and fascinated, as she revealed inflamed red palms and fingertips scraped raw.

“That looks painful,” Roy observed. “Can I help any?”

Major Hawkeye flicked her gaze up to him, her amber eyes dull and distant. She sent him a small, perfunctory smile and shook her head. Roy watched helplessly as she opened a small bottle of antiseptic and dipped gauze into it. She didn’t hiss from the pain, but there was a short exhale from her nose as the solution met her skin. Roy tore his gaze away from her, feeling stupid and useless.

His gaze fell onto the gloves on the floor, and he picked them up to hand back to her. They were heavier than he anticipated, thick and supple leather with a silk inlay. There was a material similar to the head of a matchstick over the ends of the fingers, but it was metallic. Roy vaguely remembered Major Hawkeye calling it sparkcloth. He turned the glove over to study the transmutation circle on the back of the hand, examining an array of triangles and circles that surely made sense to her but were just shapes to him. On the top of the design was a lick of flame; at the bottom, a salamander. The red embroidery thread was beginning to fray in places, Roy observed as he traced a finger over the circle.

A nudge on his foot returned his attention to the major. She wasn’t glaring at him, per se, but there was an expression on her face that clearly said, _give those back._

Sheepishly, Roy complied. He would make the same face if he found someone else handling his rifle without his permission. Major Hawkeye accepted the gloves with her freshly-bandaged hands, carefully ensuring their fingers did not brush.

They fell into a silence that was not comfortable, but _companionable._ It was more than Roy had even hoped for, he mused as he lay his head against the window and closed his eyes.

The doze he fell into wasn’t the restful sleep he longed for, but this, too, was more than he deserved.

~

Havoc lived in a peaceful, nondescript town almost exactly in the middle of the railway on their trip to Central. Their general store was the largest and only standalone building on the main road, but unlike many of the local shopkeepers, the family had their own little homestead half a mile outside of town. Havoc’s family welcomed them with open arms, warmly thanking Roy for keeping their boy alive. They were a bit more wary with Hawkeye, but Mrs. Havoc adjusted quickly to the major’s silence. The Havocs roundly refused to allow the returning heroes to help with dinner, and Roy spent a few brief hours chatting idly with Havoc while Major Hawkeye sat with them, carefully mending her gloves by hand.

Dinner was an incredibly delicious affair. Roy had forgotten there were spices aside from salt and pepper, and the spicy chicken curry and salad and bread for dinner was the best meal he’d had in three years. Roy told the Havocs such, and Major Hawkeye nodded her agreement. After dinner, Major Hawkeye went upstairs to shower and go to bed early while Roy sat with Havoc on the back porch. The horizon was dotted with stars and the black outlines of trees.

“So, you’re taking the Flame-Witch home to meet your mother?” Havoc asked. He removed the cigarette from his mouth, tapped the ashes into an ashtray, held it back to his lips. “Isn’t that a hell of a love story.”

Roy rolled his eyes. As if he had anything to defend against, he said, “It’s not like that.”

Havoc shrugged. “How many girls you ever bring home to your mom, Deadshot?”

Roy bristled. He wanted to brush off the knee-jerk reaction as irritation with his nickname, which already chafed. But he had never brought a girl home to meet his mother, and something about being made aware of that fact made Roy’s neck and ears heat uncomfortably. Because it _wasn’t_ like that. It was just helping a fellow soldier in a tough spot after the hell they survived.

A fellow soldier he spent perhaps three hours with, total, before he invited her to stay with his family for as long as she needed to (knowing his family, _as long as she needed_ was definitely going to last the duration of their entire leave. Helpers, the lot of them. He was so homesick he would have walked the rest of the way back to Central had he not felt the need to stay with Major Hawkeye).

“How many have you?” Roy asked, trying to change the subject. Havoc chortled, calling his bluff.

“Two. Daisy Mitchell and Sarah Franklin. They’re secretaries out west, now, I think, sharing a little one-bedroom with a cat. Quaint, eh?” Havoc asked. He smirked at Roy and winked. Then he sighed, leaning back on his elbows. The fireflies over the garden floated lazily. Roy watched, fascinated. This city boy had never been in the country like this before, had never seen these odd little creatures that took the stars in the sky and pulled them to earth. Havoc spoke again, breaking the silence.

“Damn decent thing you’re doing,” Havoc said.

Roy shrugged. “I’m not doing anything special.”

“It’s more than the rest of us,” Havoc said. “Hell, it’s more than the military offered. Would you have been able to put your mind back together, sharing a barrack with a dozen other vets?”

Roy shrugged. “It was her choice. It still is.”

Riza Hawkeye could change her mind and walk away at any point. She could stay with his family a month, a week, a night. He could wake up any day and find her gone. She could leave the moment they stepped off the train without a word. He would respect that. Everyone healed and grew in their own time, his aunt had taught him. Everyone’s got baggage, and they all learned to carry it differently.

But there were some moments - when she dozed off for bare minutes, so rare that Roy hardly moved for fear of startling her, and her face and shoulders relaxed just a bit and she looked so _young,_ he was filled anew with rage at what the military had put them through; when one of Roy’s rambling anecdotes summoned the smallest quirk of a smile to her lips; when the sun shone through the cabin windows and illuminated her shoulder-length hair in a glow of gold -

She could leave whenever she wanted, but Roy found himself hoping she wouldn’t.

They left the next morning. Roy felt like a new man in the clean, starched shirt and pants Havoc’s father insisted they take (initially refusing payment, as thanks for ensuring his son returned home safe, and then grudgingly accepting the money at a huge discount). Major Hawkeye, to his surprise, also wore pants, a button-up, and a vest that hugged her slender (thin, almost too thin) frame. With her hair tied up behind her, her face scrubbed clean and shining, she looked almost like a stranger.

Then she sent him a look when he was exchanging some parting banter with Havoc, exasperation topped with faint amusement, her eyes flicking at the clock as if to say _we’re going to be late, sergeant._

He ignored Havoc’s parting smirk at his expense when he followed Major Hawkeye out the door.

~

“Have you ever been to Central?” Roy asked as the train started to pull into the station. “Wait, don’t answer that. You had to take your exams in Central. Did you spend any time in Central before then?”

Roy’s conversations with Major Hawkeye largely followed this model: he would speak, not used to silence, fearing it and the thoughts it would invite, so he filled the air with meaningless chatter and stories about the sisters she was going to meet. And contrary to the rumors Roy heard and what he had expected when she joined him, Major Hawkeye was very much an active participant in these conversations. It went beyond nodding and shaking her head and writing him some messages in a cheap notebook they picked up from Havoc’s family store. It took Roy time to parse _what,_ exactly, she meant when she quirked her eyebrow this high as opposed to that, to differentiate the meanings in her smiles, to read the messages she sent with her eyes. She was incredibly expressive, Roy realized. She was just quiet in general and now she was mute from the horrors they perpetrated and she shook her head, which made Roy abandon his train of thought and actually return to the conversation he was trying to start.

“Well, you haven’t missed much,” Roy said airily. Riza exhaled softly in a sound he was pretty sure was a laugh. He went on, “My house isn’t in a great area of town, but my aunt has owned it for decades so we’re well established in this area. It might be loud in the nights from, uhm, the bar and work, you know. We joke that half of us are nocturnal.”

Major Hawkeye lifted a single eyebrow, openly noting his hesitation to describe _what_ exactly the family business was. He wondered if she knew the rumors about him, Deadshot, the rising military mustang raised in the infamous Madame Chistmas’s brothel. He hadn’t known how to tell her this, nor how to bring it up. He wasn’t ashamed of his working-class roots, nor was he embarrassed by frank discussions of what adults got up to between the sheets. But it wasn’t fair to invite her to his home and not tell her this essential piece of information. The walls were thick and insulated, especially on the second floor, but the girls talked (and talked and _talked)._

“Major,” Roy started, “There’s something I should tell you before we get off the train.”

Major Hawkeye glanced pointedly between him and the streets of Central City passing through the window. Her raised eyebrow clearly said, _getting a bit late for that, sergeant._

Roy wasn’t sure how to go into this delicately, so he just bit the bullet and plowed straight ahead. “My aunt runs a brothel.”

Now _both_ of the Major’s eyebrows rocketed to her hairline, her eyes wide. This was a new expression that Roy did not know how to interpret. He barreled on, “I mean, just the girls who want to do it. The adults, that is. My younger sisters don’t get involved in any of that, and the older ones handle the restaurant and -” _and the intelligence gathering, the blackmail_ “ - and you’re not going to be asked or expected to participate, or anything, I just wanted you to know.”

Major Hawkeye was silent. Obviously. Because she was less than twenty years old and she had killed uncounted thousands of people in a war and now the strange man who had offered to give her a place to stay had sprung _this_ on her at the last minute when the train was slowing down at their destination.

Somewhere, Lucy and his aunt and probably Penny were suddenly laughing at him, their preternatural sense of knowing when he had made a fool of himself tipping them off.

Then, to his utter surprise, Major Hawkeye shrugged a single shoulder. She rose from her seat to collect her bags.

“Is that - okay?” Roy asked, staring at her back. He stood as well to help her, his longer legs and arms easily pulling down their things.

Major Hawkeye was squinting irritably, but that seemed more directed at her bag that seemed caught on a snag that refused to let it go. She nodded to him distractedly.

Roy tried not to exhale in too obvious relief that he hadn’t scared her off and reached for her bag next. A nametag caught on a rail was the thing causing her such trouble. As Roy tugged it down, his gaze fell over the back of Major Hawkeye’s neck. For a moment, his gaze was caught on the slender column of her spine, the fine golden hairs at her hairline. Then he saw something dark poking from under her collar. Two dark lines, like a tattoo, framing words in a language he could not fathom.

“What’s this?” Roy asked, thoughtlessly reaching toward the thing. Then, several things happened in rapid succession:

First, Roy snatched his hand back, his head echoing with one of the earliest lessons he had been taught - _unless you’re saving their life, you never, ever, ever touch someone without their permission, especially a woman._

Second, Major Hawkeye jumped as if she had been shocked or burned. In less than a second she was a foot away, her back slamming into the closed glass door of their compartment.

Third, her hand hung between them, naked fingers poised to snap. She held her fingers as still as she would with a gun pointed at his head.

At that moment, Riza Hawkeye did not look like a military figure who outranked him. She did not look like a war hero. She looked small and young and angry and _utterly terrified._

Roy swallowed. He held out his hands, palms towards her in a placating gesture. “I’m so sorry. That was thoughtless. Are you alright?”

Major Hawkeye was breathing quickly. She studied him, looking for cracks in a mask, seeming to mentally review the pros and cons of answering and going with him, after all. Then she yanked her hand back. It went to her buttons, as if checking to make sure her shirt was fastened up to her neck and tie fully knotted. She tugged at her collar, raising it higher around her throat.

She nodded once, jerkily.

Roy dropped his hands. “The back is off-limits. Understood, sir.”

Falling back into their military hierarchy and formality seemed to settle her. Major Hawkeye swallowed and picked up her bag. She led them off of the train, where they were momentarily buffeted by the crush of noise and press and people. Roy did not bother looking for his sisters - they would not have risked being caught on camera here. Knowing his family, they were back at the bar with enough food to feed an army and enough alcohol to kill them twice over.

“Still with me, Major?” Roy asked. When he glanced down, Major Hakweye was once again sending him that mock-irritated glare, as if she was trying to make up for her reaction earlier.

Her gaze seemed to say, _well,_ I _certainly don’t know where we’re going._

Roy shook his head and held out an elbow to escort her. She did not accept it, but he felt her warm presence at his back as they meandered through the crowd anyway.

They took a taxi to Madame Christmas’s bar. The cabbie was the quiet sort, which Roy was sure Major Hawkeye appreciated, but Roy’s stomach was a mess of excitement and anxiety as he babbled enough for the three of them. He pointed out old haunts of his, spots he had gotten into scrapes, historic landmarks, interesting shops with their even more interesting owners, his old favorite restaurants. Major Hawkeye listened to it all, and the one time he met her gaze, there was understanding there. She knew what he was doing.

The cabbie dropped them off in front of the four-story brick building. Everything hit Roy at once when the cab pulled away. Nothing seemed to have changed: the green awning over the front of the bar, the two outdoor tables, the scent of baking bread and pastries wafting over from the bakery across the street.

No, the only thing changed was Roy Mustang, Xingese-Amestrian hotshot mass-murderer, rifle slung over his shoulder, chest dripping with medals and hands dripping with blood. He had dreamed of and longed for this moment for years: returning home safe and sound after the war, hugging his mother and his sisters and sleeping in his own bed again. Now he was here and he was terrified, frozen in place and knowing to his soul he did not deserve this. Roy stared at the scratchy black mat outside the door for patrons to scuff their boots on and remembered his musings from the sand dunes:

_If there was any justice in this world - if there was any god - a lightning bolt would cut him down the second he placed a foot on the welcome mat._

What if it happened? Would Roy be grateful for it? Would he regret it? Would he feel guilty for even making it this far? Would his sisters appreciate dodging this man-shaped bullet about to enter their home and upend all of their lives?

Roy felt his breaths coming in faster and shallower. His heart rattled against his ribcage, jumping like an animal searching escape. He couldn’t go inside. He wanted to. He didn’t deserve it. But he was here. He should run. He couldn’t. He -

Major Hawkeye stepped in front of him. She did not say anything, nor did she touch him, but something about her mere presence - perhaps six inches from him, they had never stood this close together - arrested his attention. He met her gaze. Her eyes were hard but compassionate somehow, a contradiction that shouldn’t work but did. He matched his breaths to hers, focusing on the steady rhythm. Her eyes were so interesting - the brown-red of amber, shining in the orange light of the sunset.

Roy felt his shoulders relax as the tension loosed from his body. He could read so much in those eyes, though he wondered if he was projecting or wishing she would say what he wanted to hear - _your family’s love for you is unconditional. Appreciate that you have a warm home to return to at all. Stop standing in the middle of the street like an idiot and just go, because you won’t know what will happen until you walk through the door. That’s an order, sergeant._

“You’re right,” Roy told her. His lips twitched in a smile. Major Hawkeye lifted her brows a fraction of an inch, saying without words, _I always am._

Roy took a deep breath and walked to the door. Before he could lose his nerve, he clasped the handle and pulled. There was a cheerful, tinkling bell that echoed in the room, above the din of voices that stopped abruptly as the two soldiers stepped through the door.

The bar, too, had not changed: the shiny hardwood floors, waxed bar, and high-top wooden chairs were the same as in his memory. The plush velvet booths along the wall to his left each bore a menu and candle. The wall of liquor was full to bursting, as usual, flaunting brands and blends from Amestris, Drachma, Creta, and Xing. Above it all, the oil lamps set a warm glow over the room.

A dozen pairs of eyes settled on him. Jingyi and Bai Jie’s almond-shaped, dark eyes; Lucy’s round, bright green eyes framed by a curly red bob; Alice and Molly’s hazel eyes, the only features the sisters (the only two sisters related by blood) shared; Dani’s bright blue eyes, huge in her round baby face. The wide, dark, questioning stare from a toddler Roy had never met before, propped on Alice’s hip.

And in the middle of it all, Aunt Chris, wearing her second-best dress of red velvet and black lace, pearls slung from her neck, smoking a cigarette from her long holder. She tapped the lit end into the ashtray as her dark, heavily lined eyes studied her only son and his friend.

“Aren’t you glad I told you to prepare the guest room, Vivian?” she asked. Her heels clicked on the floor as she approached the two soldiers.

“I was never _unhappy_ about it, _madre,”_ Vivian said, even as Olive chuckled around her cigar and stage-whispered that Vivian owed her fifty cenz.

Roy felt Major Hawkeye stiffen at his side. Aunt Chris peered up at her.

“Welcome to my home, major,” she said. “What is ours is yours.”

Some of the sisters waved at her; Major Hawkeye’s expression resumed the forced neutrality Roy recognized she fell into when she was feeling overwhelmed. “The girls will lead you up to your room. Caroline? Will you lead the major upstairs?”

Roy tried not to breathe in relief. Caroline was the best person to welcome Major Hawkeye right now: she was kind and gentle in a way the rest of his elder sister’s weren’t. Her warmth was akin to a blanket fresh from the clothesline, soft and holding without binding. The rest were the scratchy, heavy wool of a homemade sweater, the support of new boots that just needed to be broken in, but then they would last forever.

Caroline stepped forward. Her hair was longer than Roy remembered, auburn hair tied up into an intricately braided bun. She wore the type of simple, comfortable dress she preferred when she wasn’t working.

“Welcome,” Caroline said sweetly. “Let’s go on upstairs. Do you need help with your bags?”

Major Hawkeye shook her head silently. After exchanging a brief look with Roy and nodding in thanks to Aunt Chris, she followed Caroline up the stairs. That business tended to, Aunt Chris stood in front of her son.

Roy involuntarily stiffened when she reached for him, like he expected a slap. She had never hit him before, but he wouldn’t blame her if she changed track from that. But she only ran one of her hands over his cheek, observing, “You need a shave, Roy-boy.”

A lump rose in Roy’s throat. He swallowed thickly, saying, “There wasn’t much time out east.”

“I imagine not.” Her hand moved, curling around his neck, and Roy let himself be tugged down, spine curling as Chris pulled him into her arms and buried his face in her shoulder. She smelled exactly the way he remembered, like cigarettes and musky, expensive perfume, and Roy clutched the back of her dress and tried to breathe. And then there was Lucy beside him, holding him, too, and Penny and Alice and Molly and Olive and Jingyi, a tangled mess of arms and tears and mingling perfumes. Roy pulled away for a breather only to almost snap in two when Bianca and Dani threw their arms around his waist; he knelt down and pulled the two girls and then Valeria into his arms, awed at how _big_ they had grown and cursing how much time had passed and feeling so, so _grateful_ he was home and so, so _guilty_ for realizing that maybe there wasn’t any justice, after all, if he was here and there was a decimated country of millions behind him.

~

Roy’s first days home flew by in a haze. On his first morning back, he sat in the main kitchen on the third floor with his family and ate whatever was put in front of him and joked and jibed with his sisters. He listened to stories about school and was caught up on every piece of gossip he had missed in the last three years that couldn’t be sent in letters. He got a haircut and met Hughes for coffee. Major Hawkeye came with him, still unsure of what to do in the big house of twelve women who all were varying stages of interested in, fascinated by, and worried for her. She had gotten a haircut from one of his sisters (he was going to guess this was Caroline’s doing, too), and Roy tried not to be distracted when she stepped into the kitchen in the pants and vest she had worn the past few days with her hair hanging to her chin in loose curls.

Major Hawkeye was with his sisters now, letting them drag her through their favorite shops to find some clothes for her extended stay in the civilian world. Penny was their chaperone to keep the others from going too off-the-rails or overwhelming the major; more likely she was there to supervise Caroline, Molly, Lucy, and Bai Jie to keep them from going over budget. Aunt Chris had also insisted that Major Hawkeye get some things to make the guest room more her own, for however long she might be staying with them.

“How’s she settling in?” Hughes asked when the waitress served them their coffee and sandwiches. Roy poured in sugar and cream, two luxuries he had missed more than water pressure and private sleeping quarters in the past few years.

“Fine, from what I could tell,” Roy said. “My aunt must have warned them not to come on too strong. How’s Gracia?”

“I imagine,” Hughes said after he expounded for ten minutes about every single way Gracia had changed and become kinder, sweeter, more beautiful since they last met. Hughes whipped a photo out of his pocketbook and shoved it in Roy’s face: Hughes in profile, pressing his lips to Gracia’s temple, his arms wrapped around her waist from behind, Gracia’s eyes half-lidded with laughter, beautiful smile lighting up her face and green eyes, her cheeks flushed a pretty pink. “Seemed like she was already carrying a lot before she went to the war.”

Roy shrugged. Not because he disagreed (because he didn’t). But he did not know Major Hawkeye well enough to talk to her about the war, not really, so any questions about her life _before_ were altogether off the table. And speculating just felt wrong.

He remembered the way she jumped on the train when he almost touched her back, the way she went still and tense when presented with a houseful of noise and warmth.

Hughes smirked down into his cup of black coffee. How he could drink that after the past three years, Roy would never know. Perhaps he had forgotten how coffee _could_ taste. Roy nudged the sugar jar towards Hughes. Hughes rolled his eyes and pushed it back toward Roy.

“I’m twenty-four,” Hughes said with all the aplomb of a man three times that age. “I don’t need _sugar_ to drink my coffee.”

Roy stuck his tongue out at Hughes. Twenty-two wasn’t _that_ young, Roy wanted to argue. It wasn’t as if the sixteen months between their birthdays amounted to much, especially after their three years in the military academy and three centuries in Ishval.

_Ishval._ Even the word in his brain made Roy freeze, his hands going still on his cup. He glanced around, double-checking their perimeter, ensuring that the nearest available perch (two hundred meters to his left, down the road, atop the little flower shop with bouquets spilling into the street) was open.

“And how are _you_ doing, Roy?” Hughes asked sagely from across the table. From the knowing look in his eyes, he guessed the trajectory of Roy’s thoughts.

He set his coffee cup down with more force than he intended. “How are _you,_ Hughes?”

Hughes sent him a look that said _real mature, asshole,_ but answered anyway. “Depends on the minute. Sometimes I’m fine. Sometimes the nights are too long. Sometimes I drink a little too much, get a little snappy when there’s no reason to.”

“How’s Gracia handling it?”

“Like an angel,” Hughes said automatically. There was a familiar affection in his eyes when he spoke of his sweetheart, but his words took on a deeper meaning as he said, “She doesn’t take my shit when I snap, but she’s kind and comforting the rest of the time. She doesn’t hate me for the things I did to survive.” He looked down at his suntanned hands on the table. “She still looks me in the eyes and holds me and kisses me like I’m not the worst thing to walk the earth. The way she looks at me has changed, of course. I’m not the man I was when I left. But she waited for me anyway, and I want her to fall in love with this version of me the way I fell in love with the woman who met me when I stepped off the train.”

Hughes looked up and met Roy’s gaze across the table. “I’m going to marry her, Roy.”

Roy examined his best friend’s face. He looked better-rested than Roy had seen in years, though there were still lines he was too young to have around his eyes and mouth. Hughes looked utterly serious. Roy found himself grinning, lifting his coffee in a toast. “Well, congratulations, then.”

“This won’t be for some years,” Hughes warned. “And we haven’t talked about it, so don’t tell Gracia.”

“Why _would_ I?”

“True,” Hughes relented. “Then don’t tell your sisters.”

“Now you’re learning.” Roy smirked and sipped his coffee.

“Now to find you a wife,” Hughes said, almost too quiet for Roy to catch, and he choked on his coffee. He spat it all over his front and pants, looking like an utter idiot.

“Dammit, Hughes,” Roy snapped, a bit more vitriol than he anticipated coming out. Hughes lifted a brow, and Roy looked down at himself, embarrassed and shamefaced.

“Sorry,” he said, dabbing at his front with his napkin. “Guess I’m snapping, too.”

“It happens,” Hughes said. He leaned towards him across the table. “Have you talked to anyone about what we did?”

“Who would I talk to?” Roy asked. He laughed at the very idea. “My aunt? My older sisters, who’ve raised me since I was in nappies? Or the younger ones, who’ve looked up to me since I walked them across the street hand-in-hand and used my pocket money to buy them candy? How about the infant toddler, who has never met me and doesn’t know I’m a horrific murderer? The major, who is so horrified and traumatized by what she did that she hasn’t spoken _at all_ since I met her again in Ishval?”

Hughes listened to this tirade with unparalleled patience. This was what set Hughes miles ahead of the rest of them, why he excelled in intelligence gathering: he was patient, mindful, methodical. He could separate his personal emotions from the facts in his face. In short, he was more emotionally mature than the men who started this war in the first place.

“It’s not for me to say _who_ you talk to,” Hughes said simply. “But as a friend and fellow soldier, I highly recommend you talk to _someone._ Because if you don’t, I worry you’ll be one of the soldiers who don’t last the length of their leave.”

“I’m not going to kill myself, Hughes,” Roy said.

“That’s heartening,” Hughes said. “Robinson did. I thought about it a few times.”

_That_ took Roy aback. He hadn’t heard about Robinson, a fellow sniper a few years older than Roy. A thrill of horror shuddered down his spine at the idea of his best friend ending his life. The idea seemed to kick at the lid of something Roy had been throwing his full weight on top of, and when he stopped struggling for just a moment, the lid flung open and hundreds of tiny, grabby hands yanked him in whole.

They only grabbed him when Roy wasn’t focusing solely on burying everything - when silence fell, when a car backfired, when the sun turned the roads or the sky the wrong color. But those horrible moments of full-body freezes, his mind glitching out and filling with radio static, were coming more and more often now.

Roy realized his knuckles were white on his coffee cup and he set it down. “I’m glad you’re alright, Hughes.”

Hughes smiled. His gaze was knowing. “I’m glad you are, too, Roy. Call me if you need anything.”

They both knew he wouldn’t.

After the first week, the nights lengthened. He would doze off only to wake up gasping, his breaths uneven, his heart racing. It felt like his entire body was full of static, his extremities numb and tingling like his entire body was asleep. The fact that his shirt _wasn’t_ sticking to his back in sweat left him feeling naked and exposed and _wrong._ All he could do was muffle his shuddering breaths into his pillow, trying his best not to wake Jingyi and Valeria on the other side of the wall or the major across the way. He pretended to sleep in late so he could skip meals. He pasted a smile on his face and he felt like he was pulling a hood over his head that was slowly, slowly smothering him.

He felt himself growing distant, his head heavy and fuzzy like it was slowly filling with cotton. It took him longer than he was proud of to realize he hadn’t spoken to the major in over a week, and then it felt like it had been too long to try. He tried to help his sisters with their homework - Inez with her letters and colors, Dani with her spelling, Valeria and Jingyi with math, Bai Jie with her university entrance exams. To his great surprise, on the spare moments he ran into the major (who floated through the halls like a ghost, there and yet not, but on the moments she _was_ present she had made herself at home, smiling at his sisters’ antics almost in spite of herself, helping his mother and Olive with dinner, helping Penny in the kitchen, sampling the new cocktails Molly and Alice tried to make for the bar) he found her editing the girls’ school papers or correcting their chemistry equations.

Roy wasn’t avoiding his family. _Really._ Some days were just...too much. Too loud, too bright, too _happy._ Being around them for too long felt like he was tainting them with his presence. He washed his hands over and over, trying to scrape off the phantom tingle of gunpowder caught in the creases on his knuckles, the beds of his nails.

He could hide from his younger sisters easily, could even smile and fake his way through things with the elders. But he was a fool to think he could have fooled Lucy.

Lucy, his closest sister in age and relationship. She was five when Roy joined the family at two. His childhood was spent with her in games of tag, running to and from school together, pranking Alice and Molly by changing the labels on the liquor bottles, spying on Caroline’s dates. Lucy got into fights with other kids who insulted her brother’s Xingese features and Roy helped her with her math and physics homework. They struggled learning to talk to girls together, Lucy mocking Roy for her much better track record with dates even though Roy had more admirers. They took up bets to see how long it took Roy’s military academy buddies to figure out why his sister wasn’t interested in dating any of them (Roy was correct in guessing how long it would take - one year, four months - but Lucy was right with her prediction that it would take her dating a pretty engineer for them to get the gist). For almost as long as Roy could remember, Lucy had been his closest friend, his _sister._

Lucy sidled up to him one afternoon where he was sitting and staring at the wall instead of helping Dani with her homework. “Help me with dinner, Roy?” Before Roy could speak, she said, “Monique can help Dani with her spelling, yeah?”

Vivian’s fourteen-year-old daughter jumped up from her own work with a huge grin across her face. “I’d _love_ to! Maybe we can get ice cream afterwards?”

_“Maybe,”_ Lucy said. “If both of you finish your homework and lessons before dinner.”

“Okay!” the girls chorused. Over their shoulder, the major’s lips twitched into an almost-smile while she reviewed Valeria’s paper (her spoken Amestrian was flawless, but sometimes she wrote using the word order or tenses of her native Cretan).

Roy obediently followed Lucy downstairs to their third-floor kitchen. He hovered awkwardly in the doorway, not sure what she wanted him to do or what she wanted to talk about with him. Aunt Chris and Penny were pouring over some documents together. Penny, Roy’s eldest sister (only ten years Chris’s junior, and at this point the two women were closer to sisters than mother-daughter, to be frank) winked at him. Aunt Chris pinched his cheek in that way he claimed he hated but secretly loved.

“Good to see you, Roy-boy.”

“Yeah,” Roy said distantly. His cheek was smarting, but it was nice to have that tactile sensation to focus on. It was grounding. “Lucy, what were you thinking for dinner?”

“Valeria’s been craving traditional Cretan _pisto,_ so…” she indicated the pile of vegetables on the center table. “It’ll take more time to prep than to actually cook. Help me out here.”

Obediently, Roy washed his hands and stood at the island beside her. For some time, they worked in companionable silence.

Then, Lucy said softly, “You’ve been quiet, Roy.”

He knew she meant something beyond his silences. Roy’s hand stilled briefly on the knife.

“It’s been...an adjustment,” he said softly. “I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

“You’re not fine,” Lucy observed. She raised her hand from the peppers she was slicing and lay her palm against his face. Her fingers were cold and slightly sticky where they cradled his cheekbone. “I’ve known you longer than you could walk. You’re my brother. I know you’re not fine.”

Roy’s lip parted. He wanted to say - _something._ It felt like the vault in his chest was cracking, oily ooze spilling into his veins and tainting his blood. Its caustic touch froze his heart, his lungs, turned his head. He felt like he was about to be sick - if he vomited, would he purge this unctuous bile altogether? If he spoke, would he finally rid his mind of these horrific images _(burned, blown-out buildings; immolated and destroyed bodies; piles of bodies on the ground, piles of bullets around his hips. His ears echoing with the click-rattle-snap of his rifle, the high-pitched tinkling sound of empty cartridges hitting stone)?_ Or would he only pass them on to his sisters?

Some moments Roy regretted coming home at all.

Roy tore his face out of his sister’s hand. “Forget it, Lucy.”

“But Roy -”

“I said _forget it,”_ Roy snapped, rounding on her.

Lucy looked taken aback. Then she scowled, saying, “I’m just trying to check on you! We’re _worried_ about you! You don’t -”

“Well, _stop_ worrying about me -”

“- need to be a little _asshole_ about it, _relax -”_

“- How the hell am I supposed to _relax_ with all of you hovering over me?”

“We’re not _hovering,_ we’re _worried_ for you -”

“Well, stop! I’m not going to put a bullet in my head, so just _back the hell off, Lucy -”_

Two taps on the table cut through their shouts. As one, Lucy and Roy turned towards their mother like scolded children. Chris lifted her cigarette holder back to her mouth. The living room about fifteen feet away had fallen deathly silent.

“Take your mother on a walk, Roy-boy,” Chris suggested in a tone that brooked no argument. “Penny, help with dinner?”

“You got it,” Penny said. She stood up to wash her hands, ruffling Roy’s hair as she passed. He opened his mouth to say something, but Aunt Chris was gently tugging on his arm and pulling him down the stairs with her. Molly and Alice sent him interested looks as Chris pulled him through the main dining room and out the front door. The tinkling bell set Roy’s nerves on edge, and he grit his teeth against the desire to suddenly _yell_ incoherently at the top of his lungs.

Aunt Chris tucked her hand into Roy’s elbow and pulled him with her. Grumbling under his breath, Roy lifted his arm like a proper gentleman and escorted his aunt down the street. For nearly ten minutes they walked in silence. Roy’s heart finally returned to its normal rhythm. His skin no longer felt hot and tight, like it was too small for his body.

“Do you remember when Valeria joined our family?” Chris asked him suddenly.

Roy blinked, not expecting the question. He thought of his younger sister, her long dark hair and eyes so blue they looked violet in some lights. “Of course I do. It was only four years ago.”

He remembered the skinny twig of a girl who came in through their door clutching Chris Mustang’s skirts. She had gone out to get eggs, milk, and vegetables for dinner, and came back with all of those and a tiny, dirty child. The girl spoke with a heavy Cretan accent as she explained that she had run away from her overcrowded orphanage, and Chris, being who she was, had simply plucked the child up and brought her home. Valeria had nightmares of her refugee parents’ harrowing trek to Amestris, of the impoverished life they tried to build in Central, of the children in her boarding house who mocked her poor Amestrian and her features that marked her _different._

“It took her awhile to get comfortable here,” Roy said, “But she came around.”

He could picture her giggling with her new sisters, voraciously reading every book she could get her hands on, looking her big brother in the eye one day and solemnly declaring, with all the assurance of a prophet, that he would never grow facial hair (this memory _still_ left Olive in stitches to this day).

“It did,” Aunt Chris said. “And Bai Jie?”

Bai Jie, who had taken one look at Roy and Jingyi’s Xingese features and _cried,_ because she hadn’t seen anyone who looked like her in _years._ Who taught these two exiled children of Xing about their country and customs and language while they helped her master Amestrian and assimilate.

“Of course,” Roy said, confused where this was going.

“It took some time for them to get comfortable around us, didn’t it?” Aunt Chris recollected. “And do you remember how we did that?”

“Ice cream?” Roy suggested. Aunt Chris chortled.

“That didn’t hurt.” She looked up at her son. “Patience. Kindness. Warmth. Grace.”

“Aunt Chris, I -” Roy started speaking without any direction.

“I don’t know what you did in Ishval, Roy,” Chris said. “You can tell me, or you can’t. It’s your choice. You are my son. There is nothing you can do that will make me stop loving you or turn my back on you.” She stopped and peered up at him. “Do you understand?”

_But you don’t know what I did,_ Roy wanted to say, his mind spinning helplessly. _The people I killed...the civilians. I shot civilians. I killed entire families. I watched other soldiers kill families. The major leveled entire city blocks with a snap of her fingers. I heard their screams. I still do._

_You don’t understand, Aunt Chris, and I don't want you to._

But Roy couldn’t explain this to her. Weakly, he nodded.

Aunt Chris knew when he was telling her what she wanted to hear. From the look on her face, the skeptical gleam in her eye, she knew this was one of those times. But she recognized this was as far as she was getting with him for now, so she turned them back toward the bar with a sigh.

“At least apologize to Lucy. You know she’s worried.”

Roy lowered his head, ashamed. “I will.”

They were silent for a few more minutes. Finally, his aunt spoke: “Miss Riza.”

Roy waited for more, but nothing came. Confused, he asked, “What about her?”

“That’s just it,” his aunt said. “I don’t know much about her. But what I’ve learned…I don’t like it.”

Roy frowned. “You investigated her?”

“Of course,” Aunt Chris said. She glanced up at him. “I wanted to know more about the woman who would be sharing my roof. This was before you all came home from the war, mind you. It wouldn’t have changed my mind. But I wanted to know _who_ I was inviting into my home, what we were getting into. Considering the shape that poor girl is in, I’m glad I checked. It’s not as if she can answer any of my questions now.”

“You have questions?” Roy asked.

“I have suspicions,” Chris admitted. She eyed him. “How well do you know her?”

Roy shrugged. “I know more of the rumors about her in the war are bullshit.”

“I could have told that without ever meeting her. Our society still fears women it cannot understand,” Chris said sagely. “Also, language.”

Roy smiled before adding, “She’s quiet. Intense. Thoughtful. Unexpectedly funny. She’d never had alcohol until she came to the front, so I think she was quite sheltered as she grew up.” He remembered her confession that she hadn’t had any friends growing up.

“Hm,” Chris mused.

“Why?” Roy asked. “What did you find?”

“Come on now, Roy-boy,” Chris said. She winked and tapped him on the tip of his nose. “You know I don’t share secrets that aren’t mine.”

“Unless they make you money.”

Aunt Chris threw back her head and laughed. “You’re getting some lip, Roy-boy. I’m almost impressed. Besides, if you want to know more about the pretty girl you brought home, why aren’t you asking _her?_ You’ve been avoiding her as much as the rest of us.”

“I haven’t been -” Roy started protesting. “And I’m not - it’s not like - _she’s_ not -”

Aunt Chris had backed him into a corner, as she was wont to do. Too damn perceptive by half and astute to a fault, she had found her son’s weak points and was probing at them mercilessly while they had some rare mother-son bonding time. Because Roy had _absolutely_ been avoiding them all, and he _couldn’t_ go into why he wasn’t asking the major about her home life (the short answer was it wasn’t his business), and he couldn’t say she _wasn’t_ pretty, because Roy had eyes, and he just swallowed his tongue and prayed the sewer grate he was walking would swallow him up.

Aunt Chris chuckled. “I like her, Roy-boy.”

Roy felt himself go red for no good reason, unaccountably glad to hear that. “Great.”

They entered the bar and returned to the kitchen. Roy returned to his place next to Lucy, continuing to slice vegetables. He gently nudged her shoulder with his in apology. She lay her head against his arm, her hair tickling Roy’s nose.

It was an apology, forgiveness. It wasn’t healing, but it was a step towards it.

~

Roy was dizzy.

These panics were nightly now, and this one was especially severe. Most nights, he awoke from dreams of smoke and fire and blurry, indistinguishable images. This was the first time he dreamed he was back in Ishval (the heat and sand and sweat so realistic he thought he was there), and he was laying on his stomach, target in his sights. But when he pulled the trigger, his target had become a member of his regiment _(Hughes Havoc Rebecca)_ or his family _(Lucy Penny Olive Valeria BiancaMollyVivianDaniInezAuntChris)._

The clock on his bedside table told him it was nearly three o’clock in the morning. He had finally gotten to sleep just over an hour ago, but he knew he would not be sleeping again soon. Roy inhaled a shaking breath that trembled harder on the exhale. He wished he could cry. He wished he didn’t feel so bone-tired, so hopeless and broken and ugly to his soul.

Then he threw the covers off his bed. He went downstairs to the kitchen - not the third-floor family kitchen, but the big industrial kitchen on the first floor for the restaurant. He flicked on the electric light above the oven, bathing the room in cold yellow light that bleached the color out of the room.

_(“You’re struggling to sleep, Roy-boy?”_ Penny asked him as he washed up the dishes from dinner a few nights ago. Her work-roughened palms had brushed over his patchy stubble as she cupped his cheek.

_“Just adjusting to the new schedule,”_ Roy answered evasively. Penny’s eyes sparkled as she caught the lie.

_“Well, if you find an opening in your schedule another night, feel free to help me out in the kitchen downstairs,”_ She’d said. _“Always more to do - cleaning, scrubbing, prep work.”_

Roy had looked down at the suds on his hands. _“I’ll keep that in mind.”)_

And now, Roy almost wanted to laugh, wondering what a disaster he really was, waking in the middle of the night to peel potatoes by the pound.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed before he heard a noise on the stairs. He looked up in time to see Major Hawkeye step through the door. When their eyes met, they froze - Roy’s hands stopped mid-peel, the major halfway through the door with her foot still in the air.

“Major,” Roy said. Then, stupidly, he asked, “Am I bothering you?”

As if he could _peel potatoes_ so loudly she heard it from four floors above. The major furrowed her brow in confusion, tilting her head at the question. She stepped into the room and let the door swing softly shut behind her and shook her head, like she was legitimately answering him. Roy watched her as she stepped around him to wash her hands in the sink. She was wearing her pajamas, a soft button-up with a collar and shorts _(skin,_ his exhausted brain helpfully observed before his higher thought processes kicked in yelling, _don’t stare, you creep)_ and slippers. Her hair was loose, swaying past her shoulders. Then she took a knife from the drawer (on the first try, as if she knew where their knives were) and took a spot in the seat across from him. She took a potato and started to peel.

Roy sighed. “Penny got to you, too?”

The major nodded. Roy wondered how long she had been doing this, if she knew the kitchen as well as if she had grown up here. How many nights had they stayed awake, he staring at his ceiling listening to white noise on his radio, she down here peeling root vegetables?

(Then Roy remembered this was _Penny,_ dammit, his nosiest, sneakiest sister with a penchant for matchmaking, to sometimes brilliant, sometimes disastrous, once destructive, always _entertaining_ results.)

But nothing brilliant happened. Nothing disastrous occurred. It wasn’t even all that entertaining. It was just Roy and the major, or Miss Riza as the others had taken to calling her, sitting alone in the kitchen peeling potatoes. Ishval didn’t suddenly rebuild, nor did the cracks in Roy’s soul suddenly mend, nor did the major burst into song.

It wasn’t until Roy realized his hands were no longer shaking and his breaths were steady and his chest no longer ached that he looked up at her again.

_Oh,_ he thought. _That’s interesting._

As the next few weeks passed, they fell into the habit of meeting like this nearly every night. In the beginning it was all food prep, scrubbing down every surface in the kitchen, reorganizing the spices and dishes. Roy had never seen the kitchen so sparkling clean. But eventually they ran out of things to do (and a _very_ irritated Jingyi came down the stairs to ask them to _please_ stop moving around pots and pans at three in the morning, Roy, you asshole, not you Miss Riza have a good night), so they took to sharing tea in the main dining room.

There was something soothing about being with her, Roy appreciated one night. He watched as she spooned honey into her cup, swirling her spoon through lemon and chamomile. Which was very different from the raspberry tea mixed with brandy Roy was sipping. He tried not to drink _too_ much - much as he sometimes yearned for the dreamless sleep of a true blackout drunk night, he could not afford to develop that reliance on alcohol. The shakes alone could end a sniper’s career. And he did not deserve that oblivion.

But sleep came just a little easier after he sat with her. There was still oil and blood that was not his tainting his body, but he was learning to live with it.

She glanced at him, the wing-like fringe of her bangs flopping over her forehead. She lifted an eyebrow, as if to ask, _what are you looking at?_

Roy shrugged a shoulder, wondering what he wanted to say, if anything. Finally he told her, “It’s weird that this doesn’t feel weird. Does that make sense?”

Major Hawkeye chewed on that thought for a minute. Then, to Roy’s surprise, she reached for her notepad. It was exceedingly rare she responded to him with anything beyond a nod, a shake of her head, a raised eyebrow, a short huff through the nose.

It was rare he needed any more than that to know what she was trying to say, Roy realized as she slid her notebook toward him. Roy read through the message in her elegant, curved handwriting:

_It’s because we already know what we went through and did in Ishval. I heard about you, you saw me in action. We don’t need to pretend or put up a face, and it’s surprising to learn how exhausting that is until you get to drop it._

And under that:

_It’s not weird. I feel the same thing._

_Or maybe it is, but we're weird together._

Roy felt himself smile at that. He slid the pocketbook back to the major and sipped his tea. “How are you settling in, Major? I feel I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Major Hawkeye scribbled a short note to him. _That’s because you’ve been avoiding all of us._

“I have not!” Roy protested hotly, even as the Major smiled down into her cup. She flipped the notepad back around, adding, _I’m not judging you. But you have._

Roy shook his head and changed the subject. “How have you settled in, Major?”

She scribbled again. The sound of her pen scratching over paper, mingling with the flicker of the candle on the table, eased him. The white noise was gentler on his ears than his radio static. Finally, Major Hawkeye passed him the notepad, and he read:

_I’ve settled in well, for all intents and purposes. Everyone has been so kind. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I said yes, but this certainly is not it. My home was quite strict and quiet when I grew up, so this has been a culture shock. But it’s nice._

_Thank you for asking._

“I should have asked before,” Roy said, biting back the avalanche of other questions he wanted to ask: what did she mean when she said her home was strict? That it was quiet? What was that thing on her back, and why was she so terrified when he asked her about it? How long did she plan to stay?

But Roy was exhausted and dumb, so the one that came out of his mouth was, “Major, why are you still struggling to speak?”

Major Hawkeye physically recoiled at the question, and Roy could feel the bridge they had built between their islands erupting into flames. He almost knocked over his tea when he threw his hands out, as if to offer comfort across the table, not that he and the major had _any_ kind of relationship that allowed touching.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, babbling on, “That came out all wrong, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just - you haven’t spoken since we came back, and it’s _okay,_ I’m not doing much better, but I’m at least talking - I mean - _shit,”_ Roy said. He wished he was more like Hughes, able to take the feelings he felt and actually articulate them aloud. He ran a hand through his hair and decided he might as well dive into the fire, considering the frying pan was going so well. “My sisters are worried. My aunt is worried. _I’m_ worried. And I want to help you if I can.”

Major Hawkeye’s lips parted. She looked taken aback by his rambling, and for a few moments Roy wondered if he had ruined whatever friendship they may have started up. He pictured her running upstairs and not talking to him again for the duration of her stay.

But to his surprise, the major took up her pen and pad again and set to writing. Roy watched with bated breath as she wrote and _wrote,_ until finally, some minutes later, she slid the pad of paper towards him.

_I want to. I do. I know that if I don’t talk about it somehow it will overwhelm me. But sometimes, it’s like this thing comes over me. One moment I’m with your family, the next...I’m still with your family, but I’m not there anymore. I feel like I’m a thousand miles away, trapped on my own deserted island in the middle of a hurricane. And I open my mouth to scream for the ships passing and it’s like my mouth is full of sand and there’s an anvil on my chest and I can’t breathe, I can’t move, I can’t speak. I’m scared of what will happen if I open my mouth and let it out._

“Like you’ll scream and scream and never stop,” Roy said softly. “Like no one will ever look you in the eye again if you tell them what you did. And some moments you feel like you would deserve that. If you open your mouth blood will spill out and stain everything you touch.”

Major Hawkeye’s eyes were huge and dark in her face as he said this. Her hands clutched the mug of tea with white-knuckled hands. She nodded.

She met his eye, this sniper with dirty hands and a stained soul, and told him that she felt this strange kinship, too.

~

Roy was so used to Major Hawkeye’s meetings with him that when she failed to appear the night following that conversation, he found himself feeling very jittery and unsure in the kitchen. He scrubbed down two baking sheets and mopped the floors and it felt like _hours_ had passed and the sun should be rising, but it had only been thirty minutes.

Shouldn’t this be a _good_ thing? The major not being here meant she was probably upstairs in bed, sleeping, where they both belonged. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Which was why Roy found himself walking up four flights of stairs holding two steaming mugs of tea. The scent of his preferred raspberry tea (sans brandy) mingled with the chamomile (two lemon slices, a spoonful of honey slowly stirred in, so _what_ if he knew how she took her tea?) as he moved slowly so as not to spill a drop. He walked past the fourth-floor family room and the long hallway lined with doors to the far end. To his right was his own empty room; to his left…

Major Hawkeye’s door was cracked open. Soft candlelight illuminated the corridor. Roy did not want to pry, but he suddenly needed to see her, to _know_ she was okay. He stepped to the door, tilting his head to peer through the crack.

Major Hawkeye’s room looked virtually the same as when she arrived nearly two months ago. The homiest touch to the room was the addition of some fresh flowers that the shop down the street sometimes gave them when they had too many to sell. Sitting atop the homemade quilts was the major, and beside her was Vivian, Roy’s fourth-eldest sister, her powerful form swaddled in her favorite purple silk dressing gown.

“...could hear you thrashing through the wall, Miss Riza,” Vivian was in the middle of saying. “I hope you don’t mind me coming to check in.”

Major Hawkeye shook her head quickly. Her hair glowed like gold in the candle light. Roy could see from here the way her body trembled, her arms wrapped around herself. Her nails dug crescent-shaped marks into the meat of her biceps as she curled up into herself. Roy felt like the worst kind of voyeur watching her fall apart like this.

“Now, don’t do that, _pobrecita,”_ Vivian said. Her hands gently cradled the major’s as she reached forward to unclasp her hands from her arms. “It hurts to watch you hurt yourself. Has this happened before?”

Major Hawkeye gulped, swallowing thickly. She nodded jerkily.

“Oh, sweet girl,” Vivian said. Roy felt her hesitate. “I was never very good with words. Chris and Penny always knew what to say. I only know how to hug. Will you let me hug you?”

Major Hawkeye hesitated. Then, as if to her own surprise, she nodded. She allowed Vivian to pull her into the cradle of her arms, not leaning into the touch, but moving almost as a ragdoll. Her amber eyes looked so dull and cold as she stared at the daisies atop her dresser.

“I wish I knew how to help,” Vivian murmured to the younger woman. She ran kindly, practiced hands over the major’s hair. She tried to rub her back, but Major Hawkeye flinched away from even that gentle touch. Tactfully, Vivian retreated without comment. Then, as Roy had seen Vivian do so many times, she started to hum. This was a favored Cretan lullaby she claimed she remembered from her mother. Roy thought back to feverish nights as a child and a few terrible evenings in Ishval when these words echoed in his head, Vivian’s deep alto humming into the major’s hair:

_“Luna lunera, cascabelera, ve dile a mi amorcito por dios que me quiera, dile que no vivo de tanto padecer, dile que a mi lado debiera volver…”_

Roy watched as the major’s back relaxed. Her eyes were still distant, but color seemed to be returning to her cheeks. The candle was no longer the only light in her eyes.

_“Ay lunita redondita que la espuma de tu luz bañe mis noches. Ay lunita redondita, dile que me has visto tú. Llorar de amor, de amor.”_

Major Hawkeye’s lip was trembling. Then, Roy watched as she buried her face into Vivian’s shoulder and let out a _sob._

The sound - _sound, it was the first noise Riza had made in weeks, and he wanted to celebrate and weep with her at the fact_ \- cut straight through Roy’s chest. It was agony, shame, a bone-chilling, soul-deep _ache_ finally being given voice. It was regret and self-loathing finally coming to the surface, and Riza clutched Vivian’s robe for dear life as she wept so hard she curled into herself, back bowing. She cried so hard Vivian had to coach her through it, telling her to _breathe, breathe, pobrecita, respira, respira, I’m here, you’re safe, you’re okay._ They were tears for Ishval, for herself, for what Roy knew without asking were years of angst and pain and crushing loneliness bubbling to the surface.

Roy stepped away from the door and leaned his back against the wall. Slowly, he slid to the ground. He would sit here, sentinel between her and the cruel world that beat her down, until she could breathe again.

A door opened down the hall. Roy immediately recognized Dani’s long braids as she wandered sleepily towards him.

“Roy?” Dani asked, her whisper loud in that way all children thought was very sneaky and quiet but was actually the loudest thing in the world. “What’s going on?”

Roy opened his arms to his youngest sister, and Dani automatically crawled into his lap, laying her head against Roy’s chest. She tucked her head under his chin, and Roy ran his hands up and down her back.

Some moments, Roy wondered if he deserved to hold and comfort his family. Other moments he feared they would cast him off forever. Selfishly, this was a moment where Roy was only grateful that they hadn’t turned on him yet.

“What’s wrong with Miss Riza?” Dani asked softly.

Roy lay his head back, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out how to explain something like this. Finally, he said, “War...war is really hard and really scary. Sometimes it hurts us in our hearts as well as our bodies. It takes time to heal.”

“Is that why Miss Riza hasn’t been talking to us?” Dani asked.

“Maybe,” Roy said slowly. “I hope she’ll be able to start soon.”

“Are you hurting, Roy?”

The question made Roy jump. Dani pulled away to look up at him. She went on, “You were gone for so long. And now you’re back, but sometimes it’s like you’re not. And I want to help, and auntie wants to help, but I don’t know _how._ And, and,” Dani rubbed a fist over her eyes as they started to well up. “And I missed you for _so long_ and I didn’t think I would still miss you when you were home, but I _do,_ and I just want my big brother back.”

She buried her face in Roy’s chest as she cried, too. Roy squeezed the little girl in his arms, telling her, _shh, it’s okay, see I’m right here, I’m right here, Dani._ But he knew she knew that was a lie.

How was he to tell his seven-year-old sister that part of him was never coming back from the war? How could she understand that, accept that? How could Roy?

Dani, being younger and less traumatized than Riza, cried herself out sooner. Roy didn’t have the heart to move her, nor did he want to leave his post outside the major’s room. He lay his heavy head against the wall again as he listened to the major’s sobs turn to snuffles to hiccups and, finally, a great sigh.

The house was silent for a long time. Finally, Roy heard Vivian speak: “I’m here to listen, Miss Riza. We all are.”

And then -

“I can’t.”

-The major _spoke back._

And as heartbreaking as the words were, Roy’s smile nearly cracked his face. Riza went on, “I want...to. But I...I can’t. I can’t say it.”

Another long silence. “Okay. But we will be here anyway. We Mustangs look after our own.”

~

Roy wasn't sure what awoke him. All he knew was he was asleep, and then his lashes were fluttering open. And sitting in front of him, legs crossed beneath her, dressed in her day clothes, was Major Hawkeye.

She glanced between him and her doorway. She observed, “You heard.”

Roy swallowed. They were both speaking quietly to keep from waking the still-sleeping Dani in his arms. “I came up to check when you never showed. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She handed him a cup of coffee. Roy glanced down, realizing the mugs he had brought up were gone. She or Vivian must have cleared them away. He reached out with a free hand and accepted the mug and raised it to his lips. To his surprise, it was made just how he preferred. Had she made it? Or one of his sisters? “I knew you were there.”

Roy’s head jerked up. “How -?”

Major Hawkeye bit back a small smile and sipped her own (strong, black, bold) coffee with both hands. “You’re not very sneaky.”

“I suppose not,” Roy agreed. He thought for a minute, then started, “Major -”

“Riza.”

He stopped, mouth working stupidly but not producing sound. “What?”

“Riza.” She shrugged. “We’re on leave. I live in your house. Use Riza.”

“Alright, Riza,” He said, rolling the word around on his tongue, measuring the way the _R_ rolled on his tongue. He...liked it, he thought. “In that case, you should probably call me Roy.”

Riza smiled. “Roy.”

Oh, and Roy - Roy _definitely_ liked that.

~

Later that day, when Riza was with his sisters in the main dining room, Roy returned from a clandestine shopping trip. He ran up his stairs and opened the notebook to the first page, writing:

_It’s not speaking, but it’s one way to get it out._

Roy left the empty notebook on Riza’s bed before he could lose his nerve.

~

Roy was immensely grateful that Riza did not say anything about the journal. The closest she came to acknowledging it was a single small smile she sent him during dinner that night. It was the first smile Roy had seen that met her eyes, and to have it directed at _him -_

He buried his nose into his napkin as he wiped his face, hoping none of his sisters would notice the way he was flushing (from the _spice,_ because Vivian cooked this meal and she had no patience for her family’s lackluster spice tolerance). From his count, he was fooling approximately zero of his sisters. Except, perhaps, Inez, but the four-year-old did not count for much in this particular situation.

At least only Lucy smirked at him like the fool he was. Riza had only primly returned to her meal and asked Bianca and Valeria about their day at school like nothing was amiss.

Roy’s sisters were _ecstatic_ to hear Miss Riza finally speak. They managed not to overwhelm her with questions, but their joy and relief that she had already come even this far was palpable. Bai Jie, Lucy, Caroline, and Vivian took Riza along with them when they went out now, saying they needed her “practical” mind and advice for their shopping excursions and opinions on the latest films in the cinemas. Dani _cried_ the first time she heard Miss Riza’s voice, she was so delighted to finally hear it. Hughes was equally surprised and cheerful to hear her speak when Roy brought her along to their weekly coffee meet-ups or drinks at a local bar. To Roy’s surprise, some nights Riza even invited Lucy (and when she had the night off, Caroline) to spend time with Rebecca.

She was not suddenly, miraculously healed. Roy met up with her for late-night tea more nights than they didn’t. Riza still looked exhausted more often than she appeared well-rested. There were frequent moments her gaze went cold and distant, and Roy or Lucy needed to gently pull her back.

Roy had thought he was being subtle, but one night Riza turned to him and said, with what Roy was learning was her customary bluntness, “I know what you’re doing.”

He blinked in surprise. “And what’s that?”

“Focusing on your family and me so you don’t need to look at yourself,” Riza said simply. It was the first time the accusation had been levied so directly. Still, she didn’t seem annoyed as she added, “You need to focus on healing yourself as well. We’re both reporting back in four months. We’ll need to be ready for wherever we’re stationed by then.”

“Do you think I won’t be ready in four months?” Roy challenged.

“At this rate? No, I don’t.”

Roy snorted out a laugh. “You don’t pull your punches.”

“I was taught to cut through bullshit. Living with you has been quite the exercise,” Riza said. There was an odd smile on her face, and it took Roy an extra moment to realize she was _teasing_ him. He bit back a grin.

“My sisters are getting to you,” He fake-groaned.

“Better than thinking of -” She cut off sharply. She looked surprised, bemused, though those emotions did not seem directed at Roy.

“Better than thinking of…?” Roy probed.

Riza did not answer immediately. Instead, she finally asked, “I’ve been losing track of time. What’s the date?”

“Uh,” Roy said. He squinted through the half-light of the bar to the calendar on the wall. “The nineteenth. Or, well, since it’s past three, I guess it’s the twentieth now.”

“Huh.” Riza huffed out a breath of air. Roy recognized it as surprise, resignation, rather than a laugh.

“What?” He asked.

“My birthday was yesterday.”

Roy almost fell out of the booth. “You - your _birthday?”_

“Yes,” Riza said. She tilted her head, considering. “Explains why he’s been on my mind.”

Roy’s head was rapidly piling with questions that he had no right to ask. But as he watched, Riza’s eyes clouded again. He swore he could _see_ her thoughts spinning. So instead of asking anything, Roy stood up.

“Well!” He announced. “This calls for celebration. How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty,” Roy repeated, wandering to the bar. He studied the bottles, considering. He was going to get in _so much trouble_ for this. He didn’t care. “Aha!”

He lifted a dusty, already-open bottle that was two-thirds full and snatched two glasses. He returned to their table and set it down.

“Twenty-year-old whiskey for the twenty-year-old lady,” Roy said. “Shall we?”

Riza looked hesitant. “Remember the last time I tried a mystery liquor?”

“First, of course I do. It was hilarious,” Roy said, and Riza scrunched her nose up at him as she made a face. “Second, I am offended on behalf of my family that you think anything like that swill is in this bar.”

“Your sisters have made me _try_ some of that ‘swill,’” Riza told him.

“That’s for when people are too drunk to taste anymore,” Roy told her. “This, on the other hand? It’s not cheap, and therefore it’s good.”

“I imagine it’s good _because_ it’s not cheap,” Riza said wryly.

“One way to find out.” Roy held the bottle aloft, swirling the liquor. The liquid caught in the candlelight, shining an amber that almost matched Riza’s eyes. He wondered if this was a good idea after all, if he was having these thoughts before they’d even had any. Then Riza rolled her eyes and sent him a small grin anyway, like she couldn’t hold it back, and Roy found he didn’t care.

“What the hell?” Riza said. “It’s my birthday.”

_“Was_ your birthday,” Roy said, and he poured a sample into her glass for her to taste. If she didn’t like it, he could simply find something else for her. Riza lifted the glass and took a small sip.

“It _is_ good,” she said, as if she hadn’t believed him.

“Did you doubt me?” Roy asked as he poured himself a measure. He sipped it, savoring the gentle burn on his tongue, the melding flavors of gingerbread and cranberry. It was a holidaytime whiskey, really, but something about sharing it with the major in June felt just right.

“I did. Vocally. Multiple times, in fact,” Riza said. She had finished her sample and, deciding she liked it, poured herself another glass.

“I’m wounded,” Roy said. He lounged in his booth, his back against the wall and legs kicked out across the cushions. For several long minutes they sat in silence, enjoying the whiskey and one another’s company. Finally, because Roy still _hated_ silence and he could already hear the phantom echo of machine gun fire in the back of his head, he said, “You know, I realized. I don’t know much about you.”

“We haven’t known each other very long,” Riza replied. She sipped her glass, her pinky out. “What do you want to know?”

Roy wondered. A million questions jumped to his mind: _how could you forget your birthday? Where did you grow up? Who are you trying to forget? What’s your favorite book? What’s your favorite color? Be honest, which of my sisters is your favorite? What’s your favorite flower? Do you prefer dogs or cats? How can you drink black coffee and not hate yourself? Do you hate yourself, like I do? What do you see in your nightmares? What was your worst mission? What’s a silly secret among the state alchemists? Why do you use fire, and not water or ice or earth or steel? Why gloves and not tattoos? What is that thing on your back? Why do you prefer pants to skirts? When you eat muffins, do you eat the bottom or the top part first? What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream? Do you really want to go back to the army? What do you want to do with this country now, how do you propose we live with and make up for the blood on our hands? I have an idea, a crazy idea, and I think I need you to help me make it real, will you help me? Do I really not annoy you?_

The word fell out of his mouth before he could stop it. “Everything.”

Riza froze momentarily. Roy watched as a blush rose up her neck to settle in her cheeks. Fortunately, she seemed inclined to pass off the slip as him being an idiot. “The liquor is hitting you hard, I see.”

“Something like that,” Roy said dumbly. Riza sent him a last, considering look, and then she grinned.

“Alright, then. You asked.”

And she told him. Her father drank black coffee, so she acquired the taste from him. She preferred the freedom of pants and like the way she looked in vests and collared shirts. Her favorite book was a pirate romance left by her mother, who died when Riza was three years old. Her favorite flowers were daisies, and her favorite color was green, and her favorite flavor of ice cream was lemon sorbet, shut _up_ it doesn’t matter if it’s not really ice cream, it was her favorite. She ate the muffin in just plain bites like a normal person, what the hell was he talking about? She did not have a _favorite_ sister, but she was probably closest to Lucy or Bai Jie on account of them being the closest to her in age. Her nightmares were more like flashes of memories returning to the forefront of her mind, which was a _horrifying_ answer that she did not delve deeper into. She used fire because it was what her father researched; if his curiosity had bent towards water or medicine, she would have used that instead. Her favorite place to go when she was young was a little pond half a mile from her house, where wildflowers were overgrown and frogs leapt and the air was full of fireflies and dragonflies. Her favorite constellation was Aquila, the eagle. She was brilliant and bookish and nerdy and she knew a little something about everything and Roy was enthralled.

“Any more questions?” Riza asked.

“Yeah,” Roy said. He wondered if it was really a good idea to ask this, but before he could think much more, he asked, “What’s that thing on your back?”

Roy wondered what surprised him more: that Riza didn’t snap her fingers and set him aflame, or that she actually answered him. She barely even hesitated.

“It’s a tattoo,” Riza said. Her words did not slur together, but her eyes were faraway and glassy. “It’s the how-to guide for flame alchemy. My father tattooed it on my back over the ages of eight and seventeen.”

Roy _choked._ He coughed up liquor, trying to reign in his reaction while his mind spun with what she had just said.

_Her father - tattooed - her_ father _\- eight to seventeen, it took nearly ten years to finish that tattoo, how large was it? - eight, he started when she was_ eight, _barely older than Bianca and younger than Valeria - it was the how-to guide for flame alchemy, no wonder she was so protective of it, so wary of people touching her back, why she was angry when he nearly touched it, why she was so wary of_ touch _altogether - why she was so taken aback by the loud, bustling warmth of the Mustang household - eight, her father had tattooed his child’s back with his fucking alchemy research when she was eight years old, the fucking bastard, how could he do something like that -_

“Roy.”

Riza’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. Roy realized his hand was shaking, the glass creaking under his white-knuckles. Riza smiled sadly. “It’s okay. It’s in the past. He passed away over a year ago.”

“Those kinds of memories stay with us,” Roy argued. Even if her father could no longer hurt her, he had still left behind a young woman who hesitated to smile, to open her mouth and her hands and her heart, whose first instincts were suspicion and wariness with strangers.

“It’s fine, Roy,” Riza said. She reached a hand to her neck, tracing the slope of the ink over her skin. Softer, she repeated, “It’s fine.”

She was assuring herself, rather than him. Roy knew well enough by now that whatever feelings Riza may have had for her father - of which he was sure there were many, all conflicting and powerful - it wasn’t his place to offer commentary.

But so help him, no one was going to hurt her like that ever again. Not while she allowed him in her orbit.

~

“I’m _so_ sorry,” Roy said. Riza did not reply, because her head was in the toilet and she was retching.

He felt _so_ stupid. He had been so charmed by her, angry for her, that he hadn’t realized that both of them had imbibed _far_ more alcohol than their exhausted, aching, hungry bodies could handle. So here they were, trading places coughing up their last two or three glasses of whiskey and holding one another's hair back.

“Shut _up,”_ Riza said roughly. She reached for her glass of water on the bathroom counter. First she rinsed her mouth, spitting into the sink, and then she chugged the rest. She lay her head down, pillowed on Roy’s thigh. Roy felt too drained to even react to her presence. Dully, he carded his fingers through her hair. He could barely feel the way her soft, thick hair curled through his fingers.

“We’re going to be in so much trouble,” Roy groaned.

“This was _your_ idea,” Riza said weakly. She flung her elbow over her eyes to block out the light. Roy reached up and flipped the light switch, sending them both into darkness. This was going to be a dignified sight when one of his sisters found them. Hopefully it would be one of the older ones, who would at least give them water and pain meds and toast before giving them an earful.

“Can you stop the room spinning?” Riza whined softly.

“Soon,” Roy said. He pushed her bangs from her sweaty forehead, twisted a lock of her hair around his finger. She was silent for a few long minutes, and Roy wondered if she had fallen asleep.

But then she said, “Roy?”

“Riza?”

“Will you tell me about yourself, too?” Riza asked. Her voice was small, just a bit shy. Roy wished he could see her face. “Maybe focusing on your voice will stop the ground from swaying.”

“What do you want to know?” Roy asked her.

Riza’s answer was immediate. “Everything.”

~

Once they peeled themselves off of the floor, slept in proper beds, showered, ate, and brushed their teeth, Roy and Riza felt almost human again. They did not talk about that night aside from checking on how the other was recovering in the days following. While Molly sent Roy a suspicious glare when she saw one of her top-shelf whiskeys missing, she did not pry any more when Roy slipped her the cenz to cover for it. Roy did not hound her about her tattoo or her father, nor did he blush like a schoolboy when he thought of her laugh, her smile, her hair in his fingers, her head on his lap.

Exactly two months and two weeks into Riza’s stay, an alert buzzed over the radio, cutting out the spy radio drama the family was listening to together. It was a weather announcement warning of an impending storm. Citizens in Central were warned to stay inside and take shelter from the rain and lightning and high winds. Roy had accepted that he wouldn’t be getting much sleep that night, but the exact reason _why_ changed when there was a soft knock on his door at two in the morning.

Roy frowned, confused. The bar had closed at midnight instead of two on account of the weather, so there was no one for Roy to boot out. He opened the door and found the major standing there in her military jacket and hat. It was the first time he had seen her in it since she joined them.

For a horrible moment, Roy’s stomach lurched. “Are you leaving?”

“What?” Riza said, confused. “Why would I -? It’s two in the morning. Here, put this on.”

She pressed Roy’s own jacket and hat into his hands. Confused, Roy complied, shrugging the material over his shoulders and buttoning it up to his chin. “What’s this about?”

Riza shifted her weight on her feet. “Look. Since I got here, you’ve all been so kind. It’s my turn to help you. Come with me.”

That answered absolutely nothing, but Roy didn’t comment as he followed Riza down the hall to a side closet. Roy was surprised that she knew this hid the rooftop access stairwell. He said nothing as she led him up the stairs to the door.

“Are you sure about this?” Roy asked. “The storm -”

“I was waiting for the storm,” Riza interrupted. “It needs to be storming and raining to do this.” Her hands wrung together. “We keep talking about - about how we _can’t_ talk about it. About what we did. Because there’s this block around it, because we’re scared we’ll just scream and scream and never stop. So...so let’s _scream._ At the world, at the storm, at the military, the universe, god, whatever you believe in. I just can’t keep feeling like this. I can’t keep drowning in this silence.”

Her eyes were wide and just a little frantic, just a little desperate. The expression cut through all of Roy’s meticulously tended walls and so carefully, gently unlocked the vault sitting on Roy’s heart. He swallowed hard as he met her gaze.

_I can’t keep feeling like this. I can’t keep drowning in this silence._

Riza stepped closer to him. She was only a step above him, and Roy needed to tilt his head backwards to meet her gaze. She looked exhausted, bags under her eyes and skin a sickly pale. Just the same way he looked and felt. She was right, as always: they could not keep going on like this. Something was going to break. And that something would undoubtedly be them.

“Do you trust me?” Riza asked.

The answer was immediate and emphatic. “Yes.”

The door opened. The storm screamed and howled around them. The thick wool of their uniform jackets protected them from the worst of the rain and the chill, but already Roy could feel his skin growing cold and damp. He almost wept from the feeling. It had been a particularly dry summer in Central City. Roy suddenly realized like a punch to a chest that this was the first time he had felt the rain on his skin in over a year.

Roy swallowed, took a breath. He walked to the vault in his chest and flung it wide open and let it take him whole.

The yells from his mouth tore his throat, almost made his knees buckle. White-hot rage and grief swept through Roy’s body, so powerful it left him shaking. He bellowed and sobbed for everyone he killed, for himself, for the boy he was when he went to war and the broken man who came back, for his sisters who wanted to pick up his pieces but learned they only had half the puzzle. He pictured the children he killed, the Rockbells’ dead bodies, the cities destroyed, Rebecca sobbing so hard her eyes swelled, Havoc scorching his lungs on cigarettes, Hughes going cold and methodical instead of warmth incarnate the way he was supposed to be. He pictured Riza, heartbroken and silenced but _so immeasurably strong,_ strong enough to walk through hell, and then walk back in and take his hand and pull him out, too.

He cursed the Fuhrer, the generals, the military that thought power was in tanks and numbers and human weapons and not in the people. Not in the beautiful mix of cultures, of love and connection, the power of learning and protecting. He cursed the military and swore that he was coming for it and he was going to dismantle it, brick by brick, person by person, as this Xingese runt clawed his way up the ranks and destroyed this system with his bare hands.

He screamed and he purged these memories, these nightmares, the blood and bile and gun oil from his hands and heart. It was not healing, nor was it absolution. But it was looking at his demons that called him _broken, monster, evil,_ told him _your fault, your fault, your fault,_ and saying, _no._

_No, I am not a monster. I am not what I have been made. I will be better. It will be hard. I will falter. But I will be better._

He and Riza screamed and thunder crashed and lightning split the skies. They cursed and swore and bawled and this was _healing,_ this was lancing a swollen pustule and letting it ooze and empty and drain, finally. It was setting a broken bone, and it hurt and throbbed and Roy wept from the pain, but now it could heal properly.

_However little strength I’m capable of, I’ll do everything humanly possible to protect the people I love. And in turn, they’ll protect the ones they love. It seems like the least we tiny humans can do for each other._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HUGE thank-you to WhiteDoveSails for the line "I can't keep drowning in silence" because that suggestion slayed me on the spot. 
> 
> Some notes:  
> \- Because from FMA '03 we know that this world is sort of analogous to ours, I headcanon Creta as being similar to Spain and Drachma as similar to Czarist Russia  
> \- pisto is a Spanish dish! read more here: https://spanishsabores.com/2016/01/30/traditional-spanish-pisto-recipe/
> 
> thank you for reading!!!! you can find me on tumblr at notantherwritingblog.tumblr.com. feel free to drop me a line!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sometimes healing is difficult, smooth, linear. other times it's the equivalent of throwing pasta at a wall and seeing what sticks. 
> 
> for riza, it's the latter.
> 
> CW for panic attacks/PTSD; discussions of transphobia; neglect, emotional manipulation/coercion; frank discussions of sex, sex work, and sexuality;

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a huge, enormous, massive thank you to WhiteDoveSails for beta'ing this 18k word monstrosity. your contributions and edits are so amazing and useful, as is your endless patience when i just make up words or get too carried away with my ideas. thank you, thank you, thank you!!! 💖💖💖
> 
> a glossary of roy's family:  
> Aunt Chris, 55  
> Penny, 45  
> Olive, 40  
> Alice, 37  
> Vivian, 35  
> Daughter, Monique, 14  
> Molly, 33  
> Caroline, 29  
> Daughter, Sophia, 5  
> Lucy, 25  
> Roy, 22  
> Bai Jie, 18  
> Jingyi, 15  
> Valeria, 10  
> Bianca, 8  
> Danil, 7  
> Inez, 4

## 

chapter 7.

The good news was that Riza’s head and chest no longer felt ready to explode from all of the emotions she was bottling up.

The bad news was that _now_ her head and chest felt ready to explode from congestion.

In hindsight, going onto the roof to scream at the summer storm in the middle of the night, while cathartic, dramatic, and necessary, was also a very easy way for two exhausted, dehydrated, malnourished soldiers to get a summer flu like no one had ever seen.

Riza was confined to her bed for a week. Days and nights bled together as the fever ravaged her worn-out body. She could only keep down the fragrant beef broth Penny whipped up, tea, and water. She was so ill she needed Vivian and Chris to help her wash herself and bathe. Dimly, Riza recalled the stony silence that filled the bathroom when she disrobed and the two older women saw the array on her back. But neither said anything as they helped Riza wash.

Riza spent the week exhausted and aching and freezing and sweating, tossing about in her sheets from her dreams.

_She is in Ishval again, walking an endless labyrinth of sand and stone. It never ends, the sun never sets, the wind is always blowing in her face regardless of the direction she faces. The flying granules get into her eyes, her nose, her mouth, suffocating and holding her fast. In the distance there is the flicker of the sun shining off of a rifleman’s scope. It fires, and Riza is hit and feels nothing, only falls down, down, down, down alleyways and up is down and left is right and she is floating and falling, and Kimblee is laughing at her as he flicks his philosopher’s stone between his teeth like a snake and Armstrong is weeping and cradling a child, and then Riza lands on the grave that she dug and it’s the child she buried, only their eyes are open and red like Riza’s stone and they say, “it should have been you.”_

_She falls, again, deeper, into blackness and tiny hands are snatching for her soul as she passes - they fail to grasp her and she slips through their fingers and she lands in the worn study of her childhood home. Her father sits at his desk, frenetically scribbling notes and coaxing, “Come, Riza, pass me this book, that book, I need my notes, we are so close, my dear -”_

_“But I’m sleepy,” Riza says, and she is seven again. “It’s late, father, and I’m so tired, and I’m hungry -”_

_“I know, sweet girl, but we are so close, and then we’ll both rest, I promise you,” Berthold Hawkeye assures her, and he accepts the book Riza hands him and he takes it without thanking her, flipping to the table of contents and then halfway through and then to the index and he tosses it over his shoulder, saying, “The other one, I think, this isn’t quite right -”_

_Her father is more present now, kinder, gentler, they go on walks and they fish in the pond and he buys her the lemon tarts her mother loved, and Riza does not understand why the townsfolk are staring and whispering, all she knows is it is her birthday and her father is finally acting like himself again, and they have cake for dinner and everything is wonderful again, it’s just like before Mama died -_

_“Will you help me, sweet girl?” Berthold Hawkeye asks his daughter, his voice changing over the years. He asks when Riza is eight, nine, ten, twelve, fourteen, fifteen, he asks twice when she is sixteen and finally completes his magnum opus when she is seventeen and his hands are trembling slightly against her back. “Will you help your father with his research? Will you keep this safe for me when I am gone? I’ve no one else.”_

_No one else, no one else, Berthold Hawkeye only had his daughter and his daughter only had him and then he died in her arms, on the floor, spittle and blood staining his collared shirt, and Riza is seventeen and an orphan and she has no one._

_Riza is in Ishval and it is hot, hot, hot, on her feet and her head and her shoulders and her back, her back, it burns and aches and stings from pain and blood and it’s hot, why is everything so hot -_

_Her back is hot and everything is heavy, hurts, I don’t want this I don’t want this, I said I would help your research but not like this, I don’t want this, please take it, take it, take it away -_

_Riza is eighteen and she snaps her fingers and destroys a town square. Riza is nineteen and she snaps her fingers and levels entire cities._

_Riza snaps her fingers and the world is hot and her back is hotter and she never wanted this, she never wanted to hurt people, I wanted to help people and I was wrong wrong wrong I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’ll never do it again, I swear, just take it away, take it away -_

~

Riza awoke feeling like her head had been stuffed with wool. There was a gross-tasting film in her mouth. Her shirt was stuck to her body, her hair clinging to the back of her neck. Her blankets - plural, even for the summer, heavy quilts and flannels - were tangled. The air smelled in the way that only a sickroom could.

“Good afternoon, Miss Riza,” a voice said to her left. Riza turned her head towards it and saw Chris Mustang sitting beside her. Roy’s mother set aside the socks she was darning and passed Riza a glass of water to sip. Riza accepted it with shaky fingers.

“Slowly now,” Chris instructed. Riza complied. As if she could read her mind, Chris went on, “You and Roy have been sick for about a week. A fever, it seems, brought on by you two deciding to take a walk in the worst storm Central has seen in a decade. May I?”

Chris reached a hand toward Riza’s forehead. She nodded, and Chris pressed the back of her palm over Riza’s forehead and cheeks. She nodded in approval. “Still warm, but the fever seems to have broken now.”

Riza finally spoke. “I’m sorry for the trouble.”

Chris shot her a quelling glare. “No trouble at all. Don’t worry about it. We were only worried for you and Roy-boy.”

Riza smiled weakly at the nickname. “How is he?”

“Somehow smellier than he was when he was a teen, God help us all,” Chris said, which was so unexpected Riza laughed aloud. Chris’s smile softened. “His fever broke last night. You two will both be on bed rest for another few days, though.”

“I’m glad he’s alright,” Riza said softly. She picked at a fraying thread on her quilt. “I’m sorry I got him sick.”

“You also got you sick,” Chris observed. She sat back in her chair, folding her hands over her belly. “I could say it was foolish, and maybe it was. But do you feel better from it?”

Riza answered immediately. “Yes.”

“Then there’s no need for me to badger you,” Chris said. “You and my son are adults who have been through something more horrible than I can imagine. Short of robbery, rape, or murder, you do whatever you need to get through this time that you need to. We all find our own ways to cope.”

Riza ran a hand through her hair. It was greasy and stringy on her fingers. She made a face. “What was yours, Ms. Mustang?”

“Told you to use _Chris,”_ the woman said, eyeing Riza with no heat. Then she thought for a moment, studying Riza consideringly. Riza felt as if she were being put to some kind of test as Chris studied her, and for the oddest moment she felt a spike of anxiety at the notion of failing it. Riza held her breath and Chris’s gaze.

But then Chris nodded, coming to a decision or agreement with herself. “You’re very observant, Miss Riza. You pay attention to the world around you, you cut through the bullshit, you’re kind even though you’ve been given plenty of reason not to be. My daughters care for you as for a new sister, and as for my son…” she shrugged. “We’ll see. What I mean is, Miss Riza, I’ll answer that question, if you answer some of mine. When you’re up to it.”

“This is an ominous beginning,” Riza said. She swallowed around her dry throat. “May I have a cup of tea? Then we can talk.”

Chris Mustang grinned. “I think that’s fair.”

She left, leaving the door open a crack. Riza stood up, wobbling slightly but then finding her footing beneath her. She went to her dresser and pulled out a fresh set of pajamas. A shower would do her a world of good - the hot water soothing her muscles, the steam clearing her sinuses. The younger girls weren’t home yet, as it was still the early afternoon, but Vivian, Olive, and Alice were chattering happily about some new illicit gossip in the living room on the third floor below her. 

Riza briefly considered checking on Roy and apologizing to him for her hare-brained idea getting them both so sick, but she wanted him to rest and heal more than she wanted to soothe her own guilt. But she was also starting to shiver again, and Chris was in her room with tea and soup and sandwiches. The curtains fluttered in the early summer breeze, and Riza breathed in the fresh air gratefully.

“Thank you,” Riza said. She sat cross-legged on the bed and picked up the sandwich. Early in her visit, Penny had looked over the slip of a girl in front of her and adamantly stated that her goal this summer was to put some meat on her bones. She was a brilliant cook, so Riza had no problem eating whatever the woman put in front of her (or rather - her problems with making it to meals and her lack of appetite for her first few months were not because of the cooking).

Chris Mustang sat back in her chair. “You asked for my coping mechanism. It’s best explained if I explain what I had to cope with. In short, I had a family. They loved me, I’m sure, but that love was...conditional. As I grew, I learned that the version of me they wanted to love was someone I could not be. To survive, I had to choose: them, or me.” Chris swept her hands out in a showman’s flourish. Her smile took on a sardonic edge. “Needless to say, I chose me.”

“I ran away from home when I was fifteen. I made my living on the streets for a bit before finding this bar. I worked my way up from dishwasher to bartender to manager and, upon my predecessor’s retirement, I inherited this establishment. I had four stories of room and I needed to fill it. I _wanted_ to. I had long since learned that there were so many others whose families could not love them as they deserved, and I had more than enough love to give. I adopted Penny when she was fifteen, and I was in my mid-twenties. From there, my family blossomed. Some children were entrusted to me by former workers who were not ready for parenthood. Others were refugees in overcrowded orphanages. But they are all _my_ children. Family is about so much more than blood, Miss Riza.”

Chris Mustang sipped her tea. “Or, to put a long story short: I left my family, and to cope with that loss, I built a new one. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” Riza explained. She had guessed, with the deep timbre of Chris and Penny and Vivian and Monique’s voices, their builds and hands and hints of stubble and the way their love and kindness radiated out and out. “I think it’s amazing.”

Riza had other questions - _is that how this establishment became a brothel, why do you collect blackmail and conduct espionage if you have a flourishing business, how did Roy come into your care?_ But none of those questions were her business, nor did she think Chris would tell her as much this early on. Maybe in the future, she would entrust Riza with this information.

“As do I,” Chris said, smiling. She watched Riza finish her sandwich and turn to the bowl of soup. “Now, Miss Riza, I have some questions of my own. Would you indulge this old woman’s curiosity?”

“You don’t seem old to me,” Riza said. She examined Chris, her wrinkles and lines around her eyes. She wouldn’t put her above sixty.

“A lass after my own heart,” Chris chortled. She examined Riza. “I want to know your story, Miss Riza. From your short time with us, from my own life experience, from the things you said when you were feverish…” her face shadowed and Riza’s stomach turned to ice. “...I want to help you. But I’m not sure how.”

“What...what did I say?” Riza asked hesitantly.

Chris met her gaze. She spoke evenly, clearly and without judgment. “You called for your mother. You said you wanted to take it back. You told your father, ‘I don’t want this.’ And I saw the tattoo on your back.”

“Oh. Oh!” Riza cried. “I…”

Her throat swelled, her words shutting off. _Protect it,_ her father had begged her, ordered her, _protect this as you would with your life, this is worth more than your life._ And now Riza had revealed her tattoo and the secrets of flame alchemy to a woman Riza suspected was actually running a criminal enterprise through her brothel, if the girls’ gossip was anything to go by, how could she allow this to happen, how was she so _stupid_ and _careless,_ what a fool, what a _fool_ she was -

“I am not trying to blackmail you, Miss Riza,” Chris spoke through the ringing in Riza’s ears.

Riza’s spoke and sounded like she had been running. “You’re - you’re not?”

“I am not,” Chris Mustang confirmed. “You’ve worked out, I’m sure, that the tavern is not the _only_ business I run. Clever girl. Another inheritance from my predecessor, though I grew it into something much larger. My kindness to you comes with no strings attached. That you feared I might have answered many questions of mine.”

Riza swallowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Chris held her gaze. “I think you do.”

A minute passed. Riza looked away first. She said, “My...father. He was a complicated man. My mother died when I was very young. Losing her broke his heart, I think. He was never the same. He was an alchemist, and he focused on fire. He trusted few people, but he trusted me to help him research. To keep it safe. He wanted it used for good, and instead I joined the army and...” Riza broke off with a shudder. She ran her hand over the back of her neck, along the tail of one of her serpents.

“We are all complicated creatures, Miss Riza,” Chris said softly. “I am sorry that happened to you.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Riza said simply, as if by rote. “I chose this.”

Chris studied her. “Did you?”

Something about the question landed in her stomach like a direct hit. Riza’s hands fisted in her sheets.

“You don’t need to answer,” Chris said, standing up. She took Riza’s empty tray as she made her way to the door. “Just...think it over, Miss Riza. I’ll send in one of the girls to check on you.”

Riza nodded. “Thank you.”

Chris sent her a wink and went to the door. “Open or closed?”

“Closed, please.”

Chris smiled and hooked her ankle around the door to pull it shut behind her. Riza sat alone in the room, staring at the slab of wood, turning their conversation over in her head.

_I chose this._

_Did you?_

The question echoed in her head until it was the only thing she could think - _did you? Did you choose this? Did you really want this?_

Riza palmed the tears off her cheeks and forced the lid shut again.

~

Chris Mustang did not bring up the conversation again. Over the next few days, Riza’s door stayed open as the girls rotated in to keep her company while she was awake. Penny came with food, and Lucy and Caroline sat with her during the day. Danil, Sophia, and Bianca practiced reading aloud to her, which was _utterly adorable_ and let Riza feel like she was still somewhat helpful rather than just a burden. She still helped the older girls with their essays and homework.

She did not see Roy until she woke sharply in the night. Her fever had broken a few days ago, and unless she suddenly worsened, she would be deemed fully recovered in the morning. She didn’t know what awoke her, exactly - the creak of pipes shifting in the old house, a sound echoing through the walls. But she was padding softly across her room, opening her door, and stepping across the hall before she had consciously chosen to move.

Riza froze with her fist inches from Roy’s door. _What was she doing?_ On the other side of the wood she could hear movement, could sense something was _wrong,_ but what right had she to approach him? Wouldn’t he rather his sisters comfort him (if he even needed comfort)? Why would he want her there, why would he even accept anything she had to offer? They were making headway in their friendship, and this was far from her first time meeting him in the middle of the night, but something about knocking on his bedroom door late at night felt like she was toeing across an undefined line.

But then she remembered Roy kneeling in the sand across from her in Ishval. How he tried to act like his old self to stop his sisters from worrying. When he noticed she was missing and came to check on her. How his hands felt carding through her hair.

Before she could chicken out, Riza gently tapped her knuckles against the door. _Tap-tap-tap._

A silence that seemed to last an eternity. Riza felt the house settling in rest as she waited for a response.

Then: “Come in.”

Riza turned the knob and stepped inside. Roy’s room appeared much more lived-in than hers: there were clothes on the floor, posters on the walls. His rifle was neatly wrapped and propped up beside his closet; upon a brief sweep of the room, Riza noted his bullets were nowhere to be found.

Roy was sitting ramrod-straight in bed, a pillow clutched to his chest. Riza could see the muscles and tendons bunched in his hands and forearms, could see the fluttering of his jugular even from her place near the door. Roy looked pale and worn and his eyes were almost as round as her own.

“Major - Riza,” Roy corrected himself. His voice was even, though it crackled just a bit around the edges. He sounded breathless like he had been running. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

“I don’t know,” Riza said honestly. She walked slowly towards him until she was standing above the foot of his bed. “I just wanted to - I don’t know, I - are you okay?”

Roy puffed out a tiny, hysterical chuckle. “Is anyone?”

“I’m not sure,” Riza said. “I was asking about you.”

Roy only stared at her. His eyes looked distant, a little wild. Riza indicated the foot of the bed. “May I sit?”

Roy nodded jerkily. Riza sat at the end of his mattress, drawing her legs up with her. She was oddly grateful for her long sleeves and pants, not that she feared anything untoward happening. But the added layers felt oddly like armor. Riza leaned her back against the wall, beside the window that overlooked the bed and shone light into the room. The moon illuminated the room with a single bright beam, creating a makeshift wall between them as they sat in silence.

“I’m sorry,” Roy repeated. “I just - sometimes, I wake up, and it’s like I -”

He sucked in a breath. Riza watched as he went even stiffer. It was the same way he had stood outside the tavern their first day back, stocky and frozen and petrified. She could hear his breath whistling.

“Roy,” Riza said. She turned toward him, crossing her legs beneath her. “Has this happened before?”

Roy nodded. She went on, “How often?”

He shrugged. “A lot. But only at night.”

The words hit Riza somewhere in her stomach. While she had been soaking up his family’s attention, he had allowed himself and his needs to be overlooked, pulling away and hiding until he struggled to sleep like she did.

But Riza was no stranger to panic attacks. Her hyper-perfectionism and anxiety growing up had taught her how to work through them. She instructed Roy now, reminding him how to breathe, grounding him; she wondered if she brought him any fraction of comfort he brought her. At the very least she watched his death grip on the pillow loosen. His entire body was more relaxed now, though she could see the tension in his jaw and the stress lining his eyes.

Riza smiled tiredly. “Better?”

Roy nodded. “Better.” He fisted his hands in his pillow. “I’m sorry you had to do this.”

“I didn’t have to do anything,” Riza said. “I chose to come here. And if this happens again, knock on my door.”

Roy blinked. “But you -”

“We came here to heal, didn’t we?” Riza asked him. “And we’ve already agreed that no one in this house gets what we’ve been through better than each other. So, yeah. When this happens again, come find me. That’s an order.”

She added the last bit in an attempt to make him laugh. It half-worked: Roy’s lips flickered up into a small smile. He said, “I thought we were on leave. Ordering me around doesn’t seem fair.”

“Maybe,” Riza said. “But I mean it. Come find me if you need me.”

_“When_ I need you,” Roy corrected. She knew he was just playfully reminding her of what she said, but something about the words and his resigned smile left her stomach flipping over. “And I will.” He glanced out the window. The silver moonlight illuminated his face, highlighting the stringiness of his hair and the puffiness around his eyes. There was still something about him that left Riza not wanting to look away. She did anyway, staring at her interlocked fingers in her lap. Eventually, he asked, “Will you tell me if you need anything?”

“I don’t know,” Riza said. “I don’t know if I need anything.”

“Everyone needs something,” Roy said with a shrug. “Just...consider what that might be for you.”

Riza pondered that statement. There was a pressure building in her head, like the sky as a storm brewed on the horizon. She thought of her fever dreams, remembering the heat all over her but the worst on her back. She remembered the hundreds, thousands of nights spent pouring over musty tomes about fire alchemy. She felt the phantom pin pricks over her back: liquid fire lancing down her spine, her father dabbing away bloodied spots as he filled in fully-inked sections of skin, the weeks of sleeping on her stomach and the stiff necks that followed. She heard Chris’s voice: _did you?_

_Did she choose this, really? Did she want this?_

She saw the burned-out buildings, smelled the bodies. She felt the heat all over her, flaring up through her tattoo.

“Riza?” Roy’s fingertips, slightly sweaty from his own panic, brushed the back of her hand. Riza jumped away from the gentle touch and hated herself for it. But that only solidified her rising resolve.

_I don’t want this,_ Riza thought. _Maybe I wanted it then, but I don’t want it now. I know we worked so hard, father, and I know I’m destroying your life’s work, your legacy - but if you saw what I saw, if you know what I did with your alchemy, you would agree. But maybe what you wanted doesn’t matter - you are dead and I am here. I am alive._

“There is something I need,” Riza said, and the words felt like stones dropping from her mouth, lightening a load she had carried longer than she could remember. She dropped the stones and they built a road taking her where she needed to go.

_I can’t live my life flinching away from every kindness offered. I can’t live my life forever doubting others’ good intentions. I can’t live my life afraid of touch. I can’t allow anyone else to ever learn this alchemy._

“Name it,” Roy said.

Riza turned to him, met his gaze. “I need you to help me destroy my father’s tattoo.”

_I will be the last and only Flame Alchemist._

~

Chris Mustang peered between her son and Riza. She lifted an eyebrow as she sucked in on her cigarette. She looked like a dragon as she puffed out a cloud of smoke, saying, “When I asked if you chose this tattoo, Miss Riza, this wasn’t quite where I thought things would go.”

“I know,” Riza said instead of asking, _then what did you expect?_ “But I need this.” She breathed in, shaky. “I just - Chris, the things this alchemy can do - in the wrong hands, in _my_ hands, it - it was…”

“Apocalyptic,” Roy said quietly. The single word made Riza’s stomach twist horribly.

“Apocalyptic,” Riza echoed. “This can never, ever be used again. No one can ever have access to this research. My back carries the secrets to this alchemy. I _need_ to destroy this tattoo.”

Chris tapped her cigarette ash out. “And if I refuse to help, you two will just find another way to get it done.”

“Well, I -” Riza stammered.

“Yes,” Roy interrupted.

Riza froze. The single word was so emphatic, so sure. He didn’t even hesitate. The support galvanized her. She said, “Yes. But I would like your help.”

Chris sighed. “I can offer one of our safehouses and I can procure the materials you’ll need. But I will _not_ provide them unless you have a trained medic helping you. And finding one will be up to you.”

“Deal,” Riza said. She reached forward to shake Chris’s hand. Smirking, Chris reached forward and clenched Riza’s palm in hers.

Chris sat back in her chair. “Let me know what materials you need. It may take a few days for me to get them together, but I will.”

_“Thank_ you,” Riza said. The breath left her on the exhale, her relief nearly palpable. She stood up to leave. Roy followed her out of the room, shutting Chris’s office door behind them. Riza sighed, making her way up the stairs to the third-floor kitchen. It was empty - with the clock striking ten-thirty, everyone else was either at school or engaged in their own work. Riza went to the carafe of coffee and poured herself a cup, not caring that it was lukewarm and somewhat more bitter than usual from sitting for so long. Roy sent her a concerned look as he poured his own cup and prepared it the way he preferred (two spoonfuls of sugar, pouring in the creamer for a count of _one, two, three)._ Riza made a face.

“How can you drink that?”

“How can you drink _that?”_

Riza scoffed softly. “I like the taste of coffee. You just like drinking sugar, apparently.”

“Maybe so,” Roy said, smirking. He sipped his coffee with a dramatic flair, one brow lifted in challenge, his pinky out. Riza glanced down at where she had her own pinky out as she sipped. Nettled but mostly trying not to show she was amused, she stuck her tongue out at him. Roy returned the gesture and blew a raspberry at her.

Riza tried to hide her laugh in the rim of her mug as she sipped. Warmth was pooling in her stomach and spreading out to her extremities. She wanted to blame it on the coffee, and mostly it was, but she strongly suspected this came from the company of the man across from her.

“What now?” Roy asked. Riza felt her smile slowly fade away as she went back to the plan she had formulated the night she realized what she needed to move forward.

“We need to talk to Hughes,” Riza said. Roy tilted his head, confused.

“Hughes? But he’s not - oh,” Roy said, eyes widening in understanding. “Do you think she’ll help us?”

“We won’t know until we ask,” Riza said. Truthfully, Gracia was Riza’s first and only choice. If she refused, Riza supposed she could try and hunt down Dr. Knox. But considering his gruff distance when they parted ways, Riza didn’t want to seek him out unless truly desperate. Hence, Gracia first. “Will you contact Hughes?”

“Now?” Riza sent him a look. Roy bit back a small grin. “After I finish my coffee.”

“You call that coffee?”

“Yes, and the more you harass me for it, the longer I’ll take.”

_“Roy.”_

Roy’s eyes wrinkled in amusement and mischief, and Riza had to duck her head to hide her smile.

~

“I'm sorry, but no.”

The word was so incongruous with the previous conversation that it took Riza a few moments to process it. Hughes and Gracia had come to the tavern for dinner that night, mere hours after Riza had brought this plan to Chris’s attention. It was the first time either Riza or Roy had met Hughes’s sweetheart, and Riza had to admit that she was as incredible as Hughes claimed. She was sweet and warm and funny and clever and lovely. Hughes _doted_ on her, looking at her like she had hung the moon in the sky herself. And while Gracia was much less effusive than her beau, it was clear to anyone who saw them interact that Gracia was just as enamored as he.

Gracia did appear genuinely apologetic, but her expression was firm as she explained to Riza, “I’m sorry, but when I became a nurse, I vowed that I wouldn’t do harm. I can’t use my skills to help you hurt yourself.”

“It’s not -” Riza’s hands clenched on her napkin in her lap. “I mean, yes, it will indirectly harm me. But this tattoo - I just - it needs to be destroyed. Please, Gracia. Can I at least _show_ you the tattoo?”

Gracia hesitated before nodding. “If you think I need to see it.”

“I do.” Riza glanced at the other two men. Hughes was watching her carefully, eyes considering; Roy sent her a bracing nod. Riza stood up and gestured for Gracia to follow her. “This will be short.”

She led Gracia upstairs to her room. “I know this is a lot to pile on very suddenly. Thank you for listening.”

Gracia shrugged with a good-natured smile. “Maes has told me about what he went through out there. If your experience as a state alchemist is anything like what he went through...if the stories in the papers in any way reflect reality…” she trailed off. Riza sensed her resolve wavering and tried not to press on.

“Thank you,” Riza said quietly. “I didn’t know Hughes long in Ishval. We only were on one mission together. But he was very kind to me. And he spoke of you often.”

Gracia smirked. “So I hear.”

Riza chuckled weakly and led Gracia all the way up the stairs. She waved to the younger girls, who were finishing homework and reading in the main room under Olive’s watchful eye, and made her way to her bedroom.

Gracia glanced around the spartan space, taking in the lack of personal touches even though Riza had been there for over three months. She said, “You told me the tattoo is on your back?”

“Yes.” Riza turned around, her hands going to the buttons of her blouse. Her fingers were shaking, and she swallowed.

_You must protect this tattoo with your life. This is my greatest achievement, and I entrust it to you. You must make sure these secrets never fall into the wrong hands._

But never had they thought the wrong hands could have been Riza’s own.

“Riza?” Gracia said gently. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Riza said. She swallowed, and then she forced herself to move. Her fingers made quick work of the buttons as she opened her shirt to pull it down her shoulders and pool around her hips.

Riza felt the tension in the room change, the air growing thick. She could feel Gracia’s gaze over the tattoo, taking in the way the ink spanned the entire breadth and length of her back.

Gracia’s voice was flat. “You said your father tattooed this?”

“Yes.”

“The ink is faded in some sections,” Gracia observed. “And with the way it pulls in some places...how long did this take?”

“About nine years, on and off,” Riza explained distantly. “Ages eight to seventeen.”

“Eight to seventeen,” Gracia repeated clinically. “May I touch it?”

“Go ahead,” Riza said. Gracia’s fingers were cool as they pressed over the array.

“It’s hot,” Gracia observed. “This circle, is it...active?”

Riza had never thought of that before. She considered alchemy, the way arrays only needed a little energy and purpose to activate. Perhaps this was what her dreams were trying to tell her - that the reason she burned without as well as within was because this tattoo had been quietly simmering in her skin for years.

“I’m not sure,” Riza said honestly. “Maybe.”

Gracia pulled away. Riza re-buttoned her shirt and turned back to Gracia. Her green eyes were hard and sure.

“Whoever is procuring your materials - tell them to get a pure form of some kind of acid. Hydrochloric preferably, because it can be flushed with water. I need as many gallons of deionized water as they can get me, as well as gloves, sterile bandages - _nothing_ fluffy - and IV fluids and materials in case of a severe reaction. I also recommend some strong pain medications because this is going to _hurt._ I can’t remove the entirety of the tattoo without causing some long-term pain and mobility issues, so I need you to pick the parts that most definitely need to go and show me on a diagram.”

Riza nodded, already memorizing this laundry list - _hydrochloric acid, deionized water, gloves, bandages, IV solution, pain management medications._

“And I would feel most comfortable with some additional hands, so pick one or two people to be with you,” Gracia instructed. “I don’t care who.”

“You’ll do it?” Riza said, amazed at this turn of events.

“I will,” Gracia confirmed. She folded her arms over her chest. “It feels like breaking my oath, but it feels worse to do nothing. I would do more harm than good not helping you.”

Riza nodded. “Thank you. It’s safest for the world if this research is destroyed.”

Gracia blinked. “I meant for you, Riza. I meant that I can’t see the anguish this tattoo gives you and not help you destroy it.”

“It doesn’t - “ Riza started, but she found she couldn’t go on. She realized that to say that this tattoo didn’t continue to harm her, day in and day out, in a million little ways she never paid deference until she thought about it, would be a lie. Because it did hurt her. It left her feeling like a notebook to lock in a desk drawer, wary of accepting touch or kindness for fear of ulterior motives. It left her feeling like her body was not her own.

Gracia smiled and reached down to clasp Riza’s hands in hers. “I will help you. Tell me when and where, and I will be there.”

~

The materials were procured; the companions chosen; the safe house selected. Chris assured Riza that this house was in a secluded area on the outskirts of Central. There were no other houses or lights for miles, giving Riza the seclusion needed to destroy the tattoo and not worry about them being overheard or discovered as she screamed.

Riza smoothed over the sheet of paper in her hands. She could recreate her tattoo from memory from seeing it so many times as she grew up. She scribbled out the parts that needed to be destroyed the most - the upper left quadrant, the middle left, the upper right, the middle section of the array. That was what she would like destroyed, but if Gracia forced her to pick, then she was going to list the upper left that described how to split water vapor into hydrogen and oxygen and split the sky with flame.

Rebecca glanced over at her paper. “How big is this tattoo?”

“My entire back,” Riza said distantly.

“Fucking _what?”_ Rebecca asked. “Like, the whole thing?”

“Yes.”

Rebecca huffed out air through her nose. “Will it be helpful to you if I say what I think about that?”

“Maybe later,” Riza mused. “Afterwards.”

“‘Kay,” Rebecca said. They pulled up outside of the abandoned house. They sat in the car for a few moments. Riza unbuckled her seatbelt and prepared to exit the car when Rebecca caught her wrist. Riza went still, briefly, before she relaxed.

Rebecca met her gaze in the post-sunset twilight. “Hey. I just wanted to say. I know we haven’t known each other long, so I was really surprised when you called me to help you with this, but...thanks. It means a lot that you asked me to be here with you. Thank you for trusting me with this.”

Riza swallowed and looked down at the paper in her hands. Part of her wanted to explain that it was a no-brainer, selecting Rebecca Catalina to be part of this with her; she was Riza’s first friend. Another part of her suspected Rebecca knew that. “Thanks for saying yes.”

“Well, after what you told me, not like I could’ve said no,” Rebecca said, slapping her palms on her thighs twice. “Let’s go!”

They hopped out of the car and made their way inside. The front rooms were somewhat dusty, but the main back bedroom was well-lit and smelled like bleach. Roy had spent the afternoon prepping this room under Gracia’s watchful gaze as she prepared the materials. The single bed sat ominously in the middle of the room, lit from above with an oil lamp someone - likely Roy - had jerry rigged to hang from the ceiling.

“Are you Rebecca?” Gracia asked, standing up. She wore her hospital uniform. “I’m Gracia.”

“Oh, I know,” Rebecca said cheerfully, grasping her hand. “The number of times Hughes whipped out your picture - it’s great to finally meet in person.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Gracia said. She turned to Riza. “Are you ready?”

“Just about,” Riza said. She glanced at Roy, who was standing in the corner drying his hands off from washing them. He sent her a small smile. “I guess we might as well just...get started?”

“I’d like to administer some pain medications, first,” Gracia said. “This is going to hurt enough. You don’t need to suffer needlessly.”

Riza wanted to laugh. Hadn’t Dr. Knox said something similar in Ishval? _There’s no need to make you suffer more._ Riza wanted to argue against these small mercies, but with the way Gracia was looking at her, warm expression and steely eyes, and the way Rebecca mirrored her, she knew she was going to lose. So instead Riza shrugged. “Fine. Pill or IV?”

“Pill for now,” Gracia said. She went to their little pile and pulled out a pill and poured Riza some water from one of the many gallon containers stacked up. “Take this, and walk me through this tattoo.”

“Okay.” Riza obediently knocked back the pill and water and explained what sections of the tattoo needed to be destroyed. Rebecca asked some questions that Riza mechanically answered. Roy was silent as he shuffled about, making sure everything was perfectly in place for when they got started.

Riza felt the exact moment the pain medication kicked in, her train of thought stopping altogether and her words trailing off. She stopped in the middle of her sentence to look at Gracia. “It’s time.”

Rebecca snorted. “You make it sound like you’re having a baby.”

Riza smiled weakly. “You’re funny.”

“I’m _hilarious.”_ Rebecca poked her on the nose. Then she glanced at Roy. “You gonna step out, Deadshot?”

“What? Oh, of course,” Roy said. He ducked his head awkwardly as he stepped out of the room. “Let me know if I can come back in. And stop calling me that,” he added as an afterthought. He shut the door.

“Fine, fine,” Rebecca said. She winked at Riza. “You and Deadshot. I won’t lie, I kinda saw this coming in Ishval.”

“It’s not like that,” Riza said. She stood up and started unbuttoning her shirt. Fortunately it was warm that night, so she wasn’t cold when she stood in the main room naked from the waist up, her shirt tucked protectively over her front. She stepped forward to lay down on the bed.

“Do you want Mustang here?” Rebecca asked. Riza nodded. To her credit, Rebecca didn’t make any other teasing comments as she fetched Roy. He shuffled in somewhat awkwardly, a hand half-covering his eyes, looking unsure of what to do. He rounded the side of the bed to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of Riza, his head about a foot from hers.

“For someone who grew up in a brothel, you’re remarkably afraid of the female form,” Riza said to him. Her chin was pillowed on her folded arms as she looked down at him.

Roy glanced up sharply. “I am _not._ I am _respectful_ of your boundaries. And it’s not like they walk around _naked.”_

“Just say you’re scared of girls, Mustang,” Rebecca teased from where she was washing her hands and gloving up under Gracia’s instructions. Riza appreciated her jokes, the way Rebecca tried so hard to lighten the tense, uncomfortable air in the room.

Roy rolled his eyes and sent Riza a smile meant just for her eyes. The gesture made her smile back.

“Are you ready?” Gracia asked. “There’s not much more prep we can do.”

Riza met Roy’s eyes. He reached a hand out towards her. She grasped his hand, sliding her fingers through his. His palm and fingers were warm and callused and grounding.

“Do it,” Riza said.

The acid, even in its carefully diluted form that Gracia mixed, burned horribly. Riza screwed up her face and cried and wailed and clenched Roy’s hand so hard she must had cracked his knuckles, but when everything was over - a period that lasted forever and yet felt like no time at all, an eternity and a second of icy hot pain - when Gracia used a mirror to show Riza the irritated, bubbled skin, the places where blisters had popped and oozed, when Riza saw the most dangerous parts of the tattoo destroyed beyond repair -

Riza wept. She felt lighter than she had in years.

~

“If...you drop me…” Riza mumbled into Roy’s neck. “I will...write you up.”

“I’m not going to drop you,” Roy hissed back. “You’re not nearly the heaviest thing I’ve ever carried.”

As if to prove his point, he adjusted his arms under her legs, hefting her up higher on his back like a ragdoll. Which, considering how many painkillers Riza was on, was an apt description. Her hands were loosely clasped over his sternum, her legs dangling uselessly. Gracia followed them up the stairs, spotting them from behind lest Roy overbalance and send Riza falling down the stairs.

But even in her heavily medicated state, Riza knew that Roy would never drop her. He would fall down the stairs with her before he did that, which would be bad. Riza didn’t want him hurt. He was too nice for that. And he was _strong,_ stronger than she had given him credit for - his body corded with muscle, his arms and back under her and around her. And when she adjusted her head, her nose brushing over the junction between his neck and shoulder, she caught the lingering scents of spiced cologne and gunpowder under all the antiseptic.

“Riza?” Roy asked. He sounded out of breath after lugging her up three flights of stairs. “You okay?”

“Warm,” Riza mumbled. Her arms tightened over his chest. “You’re really warm.”

“I’m carrying you up four flights of stairs,” Roy grumbled. “Of course I am. It’s the last one on the left, Gracia,” he added to the nurse, stepping aside on the landing to allow Gracia to lead the way and open the door for them. Riza grumbled incoherently at the loss of contact when he gently settled her on top of the covers.

“Sleep now,” Gracia said, brushing Riza’s hair back from her head. “How’s your back?”

“Can’t feel much,” Riza admitted. She rubbed her cheek against the pillow - it was fluffy and cool. The cotton pillowcase was soft against her skin. She wiggled a bit, felt her ruined skin stretching and pulling as if from a distance. “It’s going to hurt in the morning, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it will,” Gracia said. “And Roy has the pain medicine, and he’ll make sure you’re taking it properly. Not too much or too often.”

“Okay,” Riza sighed. She looked up at Gracia. In the lamplight (someone had turned on the lamp? When?) her face was a warm gold, her green eyes so bright. “You’re really pretty. Does Hughes tell you you’re pretty?”

“More than I can count,” Gracia said with a soft giggle, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Does Roy tell you you’re pretty?”

“No,” Riza pouted. Then she brightened. “His sisters do, though. It’s nice. I never really thought of it before. Being pretty.” She reached up, running her fingers over the nape of her neck. Over the still-present snake tails curving over her skin. She thought of her burned, oozing skin. “I guess I’m not anymore.”

“Scars are only a part of you,” Gracia said gently. “And you are so much more than all of your scars, Riza. I hope one day you see yourself the way your friends see you.”

“Is that what we are?” Riza asked. “Are we friends?”

“If you like,” Gracia said. “Now, you’re very tired and you need a lot of rest. I’ll call to check in tomorrow.”

"Gracia?" Riza spoke again. Her lips felt oddly disconnected from her body, as if the connection between her brain and her mouth was on a five-second delay. "Thank you for doing this. It can't have been easy. It means a lot."

Gracia hesitated for a few moments. Then she reached over, stroking back Riza's slightly sweaty bangs with the gentle fingers of a friend and a nurse. The motion was maternal, and unbidden, the memory of her mother repeating the motion flung itself to the surface of Riza's mind. She felt her eyes welling up.

Gracia was going to make a wonderful mother one day, Riza thought.

"Thank you for asking for help. I know how hard it can be to reach out. I'm glad you did. Sleep now, Riza." She smiled and went to go downstairs. Roy joined her to see her out, Hughes picking Gracia up at the door. Riza fell into a doze, only waking when Roy returned to her room with a glass of water and to turn off the light. He must have thought she was asleep, because he turned to leave before Riza caught his pant leg around the knee.

“Stay?” She said softly. Roy turned to her, peering down at her sleepy form and bandaged torso.

“Are you sure?” He asked. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. Or what if your bandages, um…?”

“Gracia wrapped them well,” Riza said. She dropped her hand, curled it against her sternum as she rolled on her side to peer up at him. It took her some time for her sleepy, medicated eyes to adjust to the darkness, but slowly she was starting to see him in the dim silver moonlight. “And I trust you.”

Roy sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Fine. You’ll need to take your next bout of medications in the early morning anyway, so might as well. Let me get changed."

Riza dozed off as she waited, her head and limbs feeling heavy, her tongue thick in her mouth. Her bed was large enough that she could lay on her side, back close to the wall. She did not hear Roy come back into the room.

But she awoke sharply in the night. The heaviness in her limbs had turned to concrete, her limbs refusing to comply with her requests to move. _Sleep paralysis._

She was used to this. She knew how to breathe through this, to close her eyes against the creeping, too-tall, too-thin shadow figures hovering above her bed. Their red eyes glowed like coals. Riza hissed the air in through her teeth, wishing she could bury her face into her blankets or under her pillow like a child fearful of the storm outside their window. All she could do was study Roy, who had fallen asleep in the chair his aunt had sat in when she visited. He looked very tired and very young in that chair, his arms crossed over his chest and feet kicked up on the edge of her bed. His hair fell over his face, dark contrasting against pale skin, a masterwork in chiaroscuro.

Even worn and sleeping, he stayed to watch over her, keeping her demons at bay.

~

The next several days passed in a haze. They told the rest of the house that Riza’s fever had made a sudden resurgence; only Roy and Chris knew the truth. Chris changed Riza’s bandages and applied her ointments, while Roy made sure she was taking her medications and delivering the food Penny prepared. He also took up a semi-permanent residence in the chair beside her bed as one week passed, then two. They talked when she was awake and Roy read quietly beside her while she was asleep.

“You don’t need to do this,” Riza said to him one day. She had rolled from her stomach to her left side so she could see him properly, her arms wrapped around a pillow. Roy looked up from his newspaper.

“Do what?” Roy asked, the picture of innocence. He passed her the front page. “The Crimson Alchemist was arrested. Did you know him?”

Surprised, Riza accepted the paper and granted Roy the distraction he sought. She skimmed the article: it claimed that Kimblee had gone rogue and killed his entire squadron for reasons that were currently under investigation. Riza thought back to the desert, to his long, slender fingers rolling his philosopher’s stone in his palms, his unshadowed eyes in his well-rested face, and didn’t think much investigation would be necessary.

“We met,” Riza said, her tone measured. “But I didn’t _know_ him.”

“I see,” Roy said carefully. Wordlessly, he accepted the paper back. Riza nestled deeper into her pillows, felt the way her healing skin pulled taut.

“You don’t need to keep me company all day,” Riza said. Roy’s fingers stilled on his paper. She went on, “You have family and other friends in the city, yeah? You don’t need to keep watch over me. I’m okay.”

“I’m not,” Roy replied. From the way his eyes widened, it was clear he had not meant to confess that. Riza wondered why; it was fairly obvious he wasn’t alright. He had confessed as much to her before. But instead of asking, she waited. Roy may have had the patience of a sniper, but Riza had all day and literally nowhere to go; she could settle in, too.

Roy finally spoke after nearly ten minutes. “Things come back all the time. But it’s only with you, it seems, that they don’t overpower me.”

Riza considered him for a few moments. Then, screwing her face against the effort, she sat up, careful not to twist too sharply. Roy watched her with wide-eyed silence. Riza said, “So tell me.”

He hesitated for another moment. Then, he did.

They had referred to Ishval before, constantly, skirting around the cesspool of filth that welled in their chests lest it pull them under. But in that room, they finally _spoke_ about it. Roy told her of his first kills of families, of noncombatants. Of his first kill with his bare hands. Riza described the heat of her flames licking her cheeks, of the screams and smells. Of the day Armstrong was sent home because he couldn’t kill another child. Of the way Riza felt when she chose to stay. And all the things Riza feared overwhelming her spilled out, blood and bile from her lips, but she did not collapse. She poured out the dirt and sand on her soul to Roy, and he to her, and they did not shatter.

Riza lay her head back against the wall. She licked her lips and they were only chapped. “What do we do now?”

Roy considered. “I have...ideas. Hopes. Goals.”

“Care to share with the class?” Riza asked, lifting a brow. Roy laughed softly.

“Eventually, yes. I think I will. But for now, you need to take your meds.” Roy stood up to fetch her pain and antibiotic medications.

“You’re so transparent,” Riza said when he returned with a glass of water and the pills. She accepted what he offered and tossed back the medicine.

“Just to you,” Roy said, and Riza wondered at the weight in his voice. She wondered at the way her stomach flipped and her chest warmed in some kind of self-satisfied pride. Then she buried both of those reactions and forced herself to forget them.

Under Gracia’s watchful gaze, Riza started her physical therapy to ensure she did not lose her range of motion from her burns. After the initial discomfort, Riza returned to her previous mobility with no issues aside from the occasional dull, phantom aches that occasionally struck out of nowhere.

Riza awoke one day with no pain and no fever after a night of unbroken sleep with no nightmares. It was the first night with none since she got back from Ishval. She knew it was not a sign of sudden, miraculous healing, and she knew her nightmares would find her again. Her guilt was still present, but it did not weigh her down such that she did not want to leave her bed.

Riza glanced at her calendar and saw there were exactly two months before she was due to report back at Central Headquarters. She had two months to learn who she was when she wasn’t under the thumb of her father or the military. Two months to meet, to create, Riza Hawkeye.

~

“Ah, I see the issue,” Riza said, immediately seeing Jingyi’s mistake on her homework. “Remember when you’re doing your chemistry equations, you need to keep in mind the law of conservation of mass. And that means…?”

“Mass is not created or destroyed, only changed,” Jingyi recited from her textbook. She screwed up her nose, taking her paper back and pouring over the worksheet. She immediately perked up. “Oh, I get it! My equations don’t make sense because my atoms are all out of balance.”

“Exactly,” Riza said. “Well done!”

Jingyi beamed and returned to her work, scuffing out her mistakes with her eraser and immediately setting it to rights. Riza watched on with a smile. She remembered her days of learning her equations, the great balancing act of chemistry and alchemy. Conservation of mass, equivalent exchange, whatever it was called, the law of something for something ruled the world. Work for knowledge, money for services, lives for lives.

Riza forced herself to stop that train of thought before it became too dark for this summer afternoon. Across the room, Caroline sent her a smile from where she was helping her five-year-old, Sophia, with her letters and overseeing Inez while she played with blocks. She said, “You’re quite good at that, Miss Riza. Ever think of being a teacher?”

Riza chuckled. “Just Riza is fine, please. And no, I can’t say it did.”

She couldn’t even imagine it now. She had so much work to do, so much to make up for. And what parent would want a war criminal teaching their children chemistry?

“If not a tutor, a nanny,” Olive said sagely from her spot on the bar, where she was for once not smoking as she tallied the numbers for the tavern. “Girls were never so well-behaved till you came by, just Riza.”

Bai Jie scowled over her essay. “We were fine, Olive. Not _my_ fault Jingyi is a bathroom hog.”

“Not _my_ fault you can never do your eyeliner right and need to fix it eight times before we go anywhere,” Jingyi snapped back. The two girls stuck their tongues out at each other, blowing raspberries, and Valeria giggled into her multiplication tables.

“They’re always bickering,” she said to Riza with the wise, sage tone of a woman three times her age. “But they love one another. What’s the trick for multiplying your nines, again, Miss Riza?”

Riza smiled to herself and leaned forward to explain. It awed her, some days, the kindness that this house wrapped her up in from the moment she stepped inside. After the first few weeks of culture shock at coming into a home that was loud and cluttered and bright, Riza found herself basking in the warmth like a plant that had long languished without light.

“Who’s working tonight, Olive?” Caroline asked from her spot with her daughter.

“Working the bar, or _working?”_ Olive asked, her tone heavy with innuendo on the second phrase. Caroline shrugged.

“Both works. Good job, Sophia! What color is that?” _(“Red?”)_ “That’s right! You’re so smart!”

“Penny’s got Alice, Molly, and Lucy on the bar tonight, and Catherine and Hettie waiting tables. You’re working, which you know, Caroline, as are Vivian, Rosie and Ruby.”

“Why’s Lucy working the bar?” Bai Jie asked, looking up from her essay like she was glad for the distraction. “She’s usually doing other things, right?”

“We’ve had some irritating customers lately,” Olive said baldly. “She’s taking a step back from that realm. Vanessa will be coming back into town to help out for a bit.”

“Oh, Vanessa!” Caroline said cheerfully while Bai Jie, Jingyi, and Valeria _ooh_ ’d conspiratorially. Riza glanced up from where she was examining Dani’s homework, her brow rising.

“Vanessa?”

“One of mom’s girls,” Caroline explained. “She and Roy went on a few dates before he left for Ishval. Don’t worry,” she said, sending Riza a wink. “I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about there.”

The girls _ooh_ ’d again, louder, and Riza quelled them with a single look. Olive snorted from her spot at the bar. “Miss Riza, you can work for me any time.”

“I may take you up on that,” Riza said. “Or, well, the bar work. Not the. Other things. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, I just -”

“You’re an innocent bud,” Caroline smirked, covering her daughter’s ears under the guise of smoothing down her blonde hair. “It’s okay to not be ready for plucking yet.”

“Gross,” Bai Jie said. “You make it sound like plucking eyebrows.”

Riza shook her head, smiling to herself even as she felt herself blushing. She knew that soldiers and sailors often joked about these kinds of things, but she was still getting used to these frank discussions of sexuality the Mustang women got up to. They kept it child-appropriate for the moments any of the kids under ten were around, but even that was more than Riza was used to. Beyond some readings she had done about the biology of the process and a very awkward conversation with her father, Riza had never even talked about it.

“If you’re going to tend bar, you should get some training before we open,” Olive reasoned, changing the subject in an act of mercy for Riza, even as Caroline smirked. “Let me get - _ALICE! RITA!”_

Riza jumped at the sudden yell, even as the other girls didn’t bat an eye. Dimly, she heard Alice’s answering bellow from three floors up: _“WHAT?”_

“For the love of - _GET DOWN HERE!”_ Olive shouted back.

“We _do_ have neighbors,” Penny called from the kitchen, where she was prepping the tavern for the dinner rush starting at five.

“They've never bothered me,” Olive said as Alice jogged down the stairs. She swept chestnut-brown hair out of her eyes as she stopped on the bottom stair.

“What’s going on? That fuckface back again?”

“Language,” Caroline intoned as Bai Jie asked, _“who?”_ and Jingyi threatened to beat whoever this person was up.

Olive shook her head. “Nope. And Riza wants to help you with the bar. Teach her something.”

“You’re not my boss,” Alice grumbled.

“No, I’m your sister,” Olive agreed. “Much better, in my estimation. Get to it.”

Riza shuffled her feet somewhat awkwardly. “You don’t need to - I mean, I hate to impose -”

“You’re not imposing,” Alice said immediately, waving her hand as if to flap away any of Riza’s protestations. “I’m glad to teach you a thing or two. I’ll never argue against some extra hands -”

“No, you certainly won’t,” Penny called from the kitchen.

“- shut _up,_ Penny, and I just need to protest the idea that Olive can order me to do anything she wants me to.” Alice stepped behind the bar, tying her hair up into a high ponytail and washing her hands.

“I _can,”_ Olive said imperiously, tapping her cigar ash into a nearby crystal tray. “Show your older sister some respect.”

Alice scowled, flicking her wet hands in Olive’s direction and sending water droplets her way. Olive reached over the bar and tugged at her ponytail in a way reminiscent of Lucy with Caroline, of Bai Jie with Jingyi, of Roy with all of his sisters. Riza bit back a smile and stood to join Alice behind the bar.

Alice taught Riza a few things and said that, for her first night, Riza would be doing something called “barbacking,” which led to a whole host of inappropriate jokes that they could tell because the children under twenty had retreated upstairs to get ready for dinner and clear out of the main dining room. It would be helpful and let Riza get her feet wet in this business without her needing to memorize drink mixes.

“What’s this about someone bothering Lucy?” Riza asked Olive as she set to cutting up a stack of citrus fruits for garnishes. Olive grimaced, sucking her cigar.

“Some men, Miss Riza, don’t like to take no for an answer,” she explained simply. There was ice in her voice, but it was not directed at Riza. For a few moments, her gaze was distant. Then she was back, smirking up at Riza. “I will protect my sisters. So Lucy will be working here, under my watchful eye, until this person is gone.”

“That’s why you’re my favorite sister,” Lucy said, stepping in the door. Roy and Hughes followed behind her, and she said, “Look who I found!”

Lucy pecked Olive on the cheek as she passed by to step behind the bar. Riza smiled to herself and let the din of greetings and jokes waft over her. The paring knife was steady in her hands, the orange and lemon juices sticky and cool on her fingers. The noise was loud but soothing, signs of love, brash and true; the room was warm, but not smothering. Riza glanced up when the barstool across from her pulled out and Roy sat.

“Did my sisters rope you into this?” He asked, grinning. Riza smiled, shook her head.

“I volunteered. I’ve been enough of a burden. I want to help earn my keep.”

“You haven’t been a burden,” Alice said, coming by to inspect Riza’s work. “It looks good, keep doing that. Roy, have you been letting this girl think she’s a burden?”

Roy frowned. “I haven’t _let her_ do anything -”

“Ohoho, _let her?”_ Alice drew herself up to her full height. “You think you can _let_ a woman do something? Who _raised_ you?”

“I - that’s - I -” Roy’s mouth worked, though he failed to produce sound. Over his shoulder, Hughes snickered in his conversation with Olive and an arriving Molly. “This is entrapment!”

“That it is, Roy-boy,” Alice said archly. She reached down, poured Roy a drink and slid it over. “That’s a sister’s job.”

“I have too many sisters,” Roy whined into his glass.

Riza smirked, lifting a hand to use her wrist to brush her hair back. She felt and smelled the orange juice that she smeared across her temple. “You don’t really think that.”

Roy’s eyes shone behind his glass. “No, I don’t.”

Riza grinned into her cutting board, and the bell tinkled as the tavern’s first patrons stepped inside.

The next few hours flew by as Riza washed glasses, cut fruit, passed bottles, and delivered drinks. This was the first night she spent in the tavern while it was operating, and it was fascinating to watch. On the surface, it seemed like any other restaurant. But Riza could read the smiles on the workers’ faces, their tossed hair and swaying hips and the way they sometimes led the bar patrons upstairs. In the back corner, Roy and Hughes drank and chatted.

Riza felt the air when something changed. The bell tinkled as the door opened, and Lucy went still beside Riza as she reached for a bottle of well whiskey. Riza looked up sharply as a man about Lucy’s age sat in the open barstool in front of Riza. She studied him with the eyes of the Flame Alchemist: he was handsome, slender, blond hair and blue eyes and a slightly upturned nose. He had a smile like he thought the world was his for the taking. He wore a pinstripe suit and he removed his hat with a flourish.

“Lucy,” he greeted. He watched her like there was no one else in this bar, and not in the charmed, swooning way. He watched her like she was something to own, to tuck up on his shelves and flaunt to visitors. “I’ve missed you.”

Lucy smiled tightly. “Hello, Mr. Robins. It’s nice to see you, but I’m afraid I’m working now. I haven’t the time to chat.”

“That’s quite alright,” Mr. Robins said, smiling and leaning back. He pulled a box of cigarettes and a silver lighter from his pocket. “I’ve got all night. I’ll wait.”

If it were possible, Lucy went even stiffer. “You know our policy. No food or drink, no service.”

“A scotch on the rocks, then, Lucy, you know just what I like.” He smiled, too wide, and Riza wanted to knock out his teeth. She hated him, hated the way he looked at Lucy. He wasn’t stupid or blind, Riza knew immediately. He saw that Lucy was uncomfortable, and he liked it. He reveled in it. It made him feel powerful.

Lucy nodded tightly, preparing the drink. Riza glanced at Mr. Robins as he tried to click his lighter. It must have been out of fluid, for it sparked fruitlessly for several attempts. He curled his lip in irritation. It was an ugly expression, and Riza repressed a shudder. She knew those kinds of looks, warning gusts that hinted at the coming storm.

Mr. Robins beamed at Lucy as she passed him his drink. “Thank you, Lucy. That wasn’t so hard, was it? And how much harder can anything else be? A drink, a date…” He flapped a hand. “It’s all about money in the end. It’s just an exchange, after all. What have you got against that?”

“The Madame’s Girls have the right to refuse a client’s request at any time,” Lucy repeated the policy. “You know that.”

“I do,” Mr. Robins said. “But I also know that in your business, money talks so much more than anything else. Simply name your price.”

Lucy’s knuckles were white where she clutched the sink. “I’m not for sale.”

Mr. Robins looked ready to reply, mouth opening to say something that, judging by the wolfish, predatory look in his eyes, would be unpleasant, but Riza was sick of this cruel back-and-forth.

She reached for her back pocket, where her gloves were never far from her side. She tucked one over her hand and leaned forward across the bar, putting her best, most winning smile on her face.

“You seem to be having some trouble, Mr. Robins,” Riza observed in her most saccharine tone. “Let me help you.”

Mr. Robins obliged, more out of surprise than anything else, Riza supposed. That was fine with her. It was the work of a moment to meet his gaze and smile innocently, snapping her fingers and allowing a flicker of fire to light the end of the cigarette. Mr. Robins sent her a double-take, then a triple-take, his eyes going wide and mouth dropping open in fear.

Riza let herself smile further, growing dangerous at the edges. She may not have liked the stories about her, but for this, for Lucy, for this family - she could handle this. She could lean into the persona the rumor mill built for her. Riza tilted her head, let the fringe of her bangs fall prettily over her forehead. “I think she’s made herself clear, yes?”

Mr. Robins nodded, mutely terrified. Riza allowed the flame to lick an inch higher, consuming more of the cigarette.

“I think it would be better if you left and never came back. Don’t you agree, Mr. Robins?”

The man was gone almost before Riza finished her sentence. Riza rolled her eyes, tugging her glove off and putting it in her pocket. She turned to Lucy, who was staring at her with wide green eyes.

“You okay?” Riza asked.

Lucy flung her arms around Riza, yanking Riza against her body. Lucy breathed out, shakily, “Thank you, thank you, _thank you.”_

Riza frowned. “Of course. I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing. That guy was an asshole.”

“I’m so glad Roy brought you home,” Lucy said, and that made Riza freeze. Then, carefully, slowly so she wouldn’t break the moment, she wrapped her arms around Lucy in turn. She was warm, a bit smaller than Riza, and she held her like a sister.

Over her shoulder, Riza saw Roy half-out of his chair, like he had been coming over to help before Riza stepped in. The expression in his eyes was almost too soft for Riza to bear; he didn’t need to say anything, didn’t need to nod or mouth _thank you._ She knew whatever he was thinking or wanted to say. She only smiled and hugged his sister.

~

“And _then,”_ Lucy said, laughing into her wine. “This man knocks over his chair running out of the restaurant!”

The table exploded into laughter. Riza smiled down into her drink, sipping and measuring the taste on her tongue. The whiskey sour was tart and citrusy and delicious. She eyed her companions as they laughed: Lucy, Caroline, Rebecca, Gracia, Vanessa. This get-together was a small celebration of the last woman’s return to town after what she described as her “placement” in North City for the past several months. Riza hadn’t wanted to intrude, but Vanessa had only peered around Roy’s shoulder where she was cheerfully greeting him, beamed ear-to-ear, and said, “oh my goodness, hello, I’ve heard all about you from the Madame! It’s so nice to finally meet you, your hair is so cute, I always wished I could be blonde, you have to come out tonight!”

So. Here Riza was. And because Vanessa had insisted on _the more the merrier,_ Riza had also called Gracia and Rebecca, who had nothing planned for the night and decided to join them. So now the group of women was sitting in this back booth of a restaurant Rebecca suggested, sharing fries and drinks and stories.

“That’s so amazing!” Vanessa said cheerfully. She stirred her tiny straw through her neon-pink cocktail. “You will not believe the assholes we’ve had to put up with. Some literal.” She winked. “But they seem to think that a dinner is an invitation for a kiss, or a kiss is an invitation for more. And no. That’s not what I signed up for. You’re paying for my _company,_ not my body.”

“Exactly,” Caroline said. She sipped her wine. “If you’re not awful, there is a significant chance I _will_ decide to sleep with you. I’ve had so many dates where I thought I’d be interested in sex until they started acting _entitled_ to it.”

“I’ve had moments I actually _felt_ myself dry up,” Lucy said, which made everyone snort into their drinks. Her cheeks were flushed prettily as she drank her beer.

“Out of curiosity,” Rebecca said, sipping her whiskey, neat. “And you don’t have to answer this if it’s insulting. But why _do_ you do this work?”

“I’m not offended at all,” Vanessa smirked. “Simple. “I like sex, free meals, fancy things, and gossip. These men also like sex, buying me meals and fancy things, and telling me anything I ask them after a romp in the sheets. I’m quite happy.”

“It’s because she’s a horny, nosy bitch and she figured she might as well get paid for it,” Lucy muttered, and instead of being angry Vanessa threw back her head and laughed.

“That’s exactly it. And Madame Christmas is a good woman to work for - she trusts us, trusts our methods, doesn’t force us to do things we don’t want to do, doesn’t withhold our pay. It’s actual, honest-to-god sex work, not trafficking.”

A brief silence went around the table. The working girls went quiet and thoughtful, Riza and Rebecca quiet. They exchanged looks, unsure of what to say.

Gracia spoke up. “Do you know women who are in that situation?”

“‘Course,” Caroline said. She shrugged. “We all do.”

“Why don’t you go to the police?” Gracia asked. “The military?”

Vanessa snorted into her glass. “Because the police and the military are the biggest buyers, love. They’re not going to investigate their own, especially not when it’s so much easier to arrest for solicitation.” She leaned forward. “That’s why we do what we do. We keep an eye out for our fellow workers. The stories tend to get buried, but the blackmail we weasel out as one of Christmas’s girls…” she winked. “We look after our own.”

“Hm.” Gracia hummed. “If you ever need anything, send them to me. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”

“‘Taken care of,’ hm,” Caroline chuckled. “You sound like mom.”

“Thank you.”

“Our chaotic nature is rubbing off on you, hmm?” Rebecca asked, smirking. Gracia shot her a look and Riza nudged her ankle under the table.

“I’m a nurse to provide care.”

Vanessa reached across the table and placed a hand on Gracia’s. Her big, dark eyes were open and guileless as she said, “Thank you, Gracia. That really means a lot. So often, we’re judged for our work. By medical professionals, by partners.”

“I’m sorry,” Riza said softly. It was very, very different, but she could empathize with what it felt like to be judged by one’s career choices.

Vanessa beamed. “It’s quite alright. Like I said, I picked this. But I don’t want to do it forever.”

“Oh? What do you want to do?” Rebecca asked. Something about this question left Caroline and Lucy groaning in tandem.

Vanessa grinned wickedly. “I want to be a radio show host!”

Riza lifted an eyebrow. This woman’s bubbly personality seemed completely at odds with the career of a person sitting in a radio booth, speaking smoothly and plainly over the airwaves. “Oh? What kind of show?”

“An advice show!” Vanessa said. She leaned forward, grinning conspiratorially. “Especially for women. There are so many things we’re not taught, things we’re not told. Things we’re encouraged not to be. I think it’s bullshit and I want to change that! I want people to call in and ask questions. But I need to get more life experience under my belt before I can get started on that.”

“Why? You’ve already had plenty under your belt,” Lucy teased. Vanessa laughed, high and bright.

“I have! I have so many stupid stories, but..” She smirked at Gracia, Rebecca, and Riza. “I want to know yours.”

Gracia shook her head. “I’m a one-man woman. I don’t have much to say.”

“That’s plenty!” Vanessa said. “The power of love! Of affection! Friendship! Relationships are so much more than what you get up to - or don’t - between the sheets, or the number of notches on your bedpost.”

Gracia smiled. “I appreciate that. Here, look at him.”

Gracia opened her purse and pulled out her pocketbook. Riza saw a familiar picture of Hughes kissing Gracia’s temple as it was passed to Vanessa. She accepted the photo, and Lucy and Caroline leaned in to admire it. They spent a few minutes cooing over the happy couple, leaving Riza and Rebecca to exchange glances and roll their eyes in mutual commiseration and sip their drinks in the drinking game they had used in Ishval.

It was nice. It was warm, friendly, Riza’s cheeks going flushed from the buzz and aching from smiling. Her cheeks ached from smiling. It was the best thing she had ever felt.

“What about you, Rebecca?” Vanessa asked. “Have you a beau?”

“She’s going to go through all three of you,” Caroline warned cheerfully. She reached forward and grabbed a handful of fries. “Get ready.”

Rebecca shook her head. “No.”

“Is that true?” Riza asked, lifting a teasing brow. “What’s this Roy tells me about you and Havoc then, hm?”

“That traitorous _fucker!”_ Rebecca cried; Vanessa asked, “Havoc? Is that a real name or a nickname?”; Caroline, Riza, and Lucy laughed.

Rebecca grimaced over her whiskey. “It was just sex! Ishval was...awful. Sleeping with him sometimes helped me feel anything else.”

A long silence fell over the table. Vanessa considered Rebecca for a few moments before she reached forward, her manicured nails finding Rebecca’s wrist. Gently, she said, 

“In my experience, you have sex for one of three reasons: for love, for fun, or for money. Everything comes back to those three things. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Does the sex mean any less if you’re doing it with a friend, someone you care about and trust? Did it make your days more bearable? Did it help you find sleep at night?”

Rebecca sighed. As if irritated by her answer, she said, “Yes. To all of that.”

Riza smiled into her cocktail. She thought back to Rebecca and Havoc’s friendly bickering, the way Rebecca studied Havoc’s muscled form across the fire, the way Havoc’s eyes trailed over Rebecca’s pretty face, dark eyes, long hair. She thought of how her friend felt safe enough to sleep in the open desert air with her head pillowed on his lap.

“Surviving takes lots of forms,” Vanessa said. Her tone was heavy with a meaning that only she, Lucy, and Caroline seemed to understand. “You do it how you can. That’s nothing to diminish. Do you regret it?”

“No,” Rebecca said.

“Would you do it again?” Lucy asked, propping her chin on her hands.

Rebecca shrugged, though her face flushed. “I would because he’s hot and good at it. But there’s no - there’s no _feelings.”_

Vanessa’s eyes sparkled with laughter; Caroline asked, “Who said anything about feelings?”

Rebecca shot her hand forward to dig around for the last of their fries. “That’s it for me! Your turn, Riza!”

Riza rolled her eyes at the transparent attempt to deflect. Still, Riza said, “I’d help, but I can’t. I don’t have anything to say. I’ve never been with anyone.”

“At all?” Vanessa asked, surprised. “Ever?”

“No.”

“But you’re beautiful?” Vanessa said, looking utterly baffled. “Quiet, intense, brilliant? I can think of a long list of men off the top of my head who would love to meet someone like you. Or women, if you have a preference.”

Riza blushed. “I - that is - I was very...sheltered, growing up. Homeschooled by my father, and then I joined the army only a few weeks after he passed. There was never any time, nor interest.”

“Are you not interested at all?” Lucy asked. “That’s normal, too.”

“I mean,” Riza sighed. How to explain that she was interested, maybe, but she had never really felt that kind of pull or desire? That her first two decades of life had been spent with an emotionally distant father and perpetrating a genocide so, really, sex wasn’t on her mind much? “I’m interested in it in theory. But I’ve no idea how to go about it.”

“No?” Vanessa said. “Well, in clinical terms -”

“No, I know how it _works,”_ Riza interrupted quickly. “I’m sheltered, not clueless.” She knew her own body, what she liked and wanted and what felt good, but the idea of doing anything with anyone else, of opening up like that, felt terrifying. Until very recently, she had shoved the idea from her mind, lest a prospective partner see the tattoo on her back. But now that was gone, and Riza was independent and on her own. She could do whatever she wanted. The freedom was terrifying, dizzying, liberating. She sighed, sipping her drink. “I’m explaining this badly.”

“I don’t think so,” Vanessa said simply. “We all develop at our own pace. It’s okay to not have had any partners, or to not _want_ any partners. But if you _want_ a partner but aren’t sure how find yourself one, I’d be happy to introduce you to some of our work friends.”

Caroline nodded. Lucy smirked, mumbled into her glass, “Roy might be a place to start.”

_“Absolutely_ not,” Riza said, much too sharply and loudly. She felt her face go hot and she reached for more fries. They were at the bottom of the basket now, and she felt little potato crumbles and chunks of rock salt getting under her nails.

“Are you _not_ together?” Gracia asked, surprised. Rebecca snorted on her drink, starting to howl with laughter. “I just assumed, after…”

“We are not,” Riza said. “We are still in the army, and I am a superior officer. It would be…” Fine, really. It wasn’t like she was his direct superior. He didn’t answer to her. Still, something about the idea made her stomach roll and her heart clench uncomfortably. “We’re friends.”

“Okay,” Vanessa said, ignoring the way literally every single other woman at the table was carefully avoiding meeting the gaze of the others. “My offer still stands. I can think of some folks I’d be happy to introduce you to.”

Riza considered that, surprising herself. “I don’t want my first time to be something I pay for.”

“Understandable,” Rebecca said. Vanessa nodded.

“Of course! And, again, you seem to forget how beautiful and clever you are, so do know that these blokes I’m thinking of would probably be thrilled to just take you on a date. Just let me know. Now,” she leaned forward on her chin, a smirk over her face. “Please tell me all about what it’s like to be an alchemist.”

~

It wasn’t like Riza thought her entire life or world would have been changed, but she also had not expected to feel...nothing.

Or, rather, she had _felt_ plenty. There was a slight ache between her legs she had been assured was perfectly natural, and despite her late night and the early hour there was a languid relaxation in her muscles. Physically, she felt great. Mentally and emotionally she felt, if not great, she felt good. Fine.

At breakfast with Vanessa, Rebecca, and Lucy, she had been assured that this was natural. Some people needed to have an emotional connection with their partner before they really _desired_ sex. And also the first time is never truly mind-blowing, so her sense of indifference was to be expected.

All in all, Riza had said into her eggs at the outdoor cafe, she had fun, but she didn’t love it. She could understand what the hype was about, and she was glad to have her first sexual experience over and done with, but it had been utterly forgettable and she was in no rush to hop back in the sack with someone anytime soon.

“Cheers! Not like you need a partner to enjoy yourself in any case,” Vanessa had said happily, congratulating her and clinking their coffee mugs together, and then the topic had turned to asking Lucy what she thought of the most recent episode of their favorite spy radio drama.

Now they had wrapped up breakfast, and Lucy was walking Riza back to Chris’s tavern. They chatted amiably, looking forward to sharing the boxes of donuts they had gotten at the cafe bakery. The bell tinkled cheerfully above them as they walked in, and half the family looked up from their spaces in the front room. A chorus of good-mornings went around, as did the general cheerful din at the fact the two had brought pastries.

Despite the breakfast she just had, Riza sat up at the bar and poured herself a cup of coffee, setting the donuts on the wood. She helped Dani up onto the chair beside her, and she cut a chocolate-glazed donut in half for Sophia and Inez to split. Monique giggled over her strawberry cruller and brought a wrapped donut upstairs to give to her mother, a notoriously late riser.

“Save one for me!” Roy called from nowhere. Riza looked around, confused; Penny chortled from her spot behind the counter.

“Roy-boy is insisting he try to fix the sink,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Dam - _darn_ thing is blocked again. He said we can save money on a plumber and let him handle it.”

“So what time is the plumber coming?” Lucy asked, pulling out the chair on the other side of Dani and giving the young girl a napkin. Dani giggled and wiped the chocolate glaze from her lips.

“Noon,” Penny and Olive said at the same time. The sisters smirked at each other from across the room.

“I get no affection in this house,” Roy complained. “No love.”

“Tragic,” Riza said dryly. “What kind of donut do you want, Roy?”

“Strawberry filled, please, and you are my new favorite person,” Roy said.

Lucy snorted into her cup of tea. “That implies she wasn’t already.”

“Unbelievable. The slander -” There was the sound of something popping, or snapping, and whatever Roy was going to keep faux-whining about cut off in a shriek of surprise. The entire room erupted into laughter as the pipe apparently burst, spraying all over. “Shit! Shit, shit -”

“Language, Roy,” Chris said smoothly as she stepped into the room. She exchanged a smirk with Penny, who reached over and turned off the water valve. Riza wondered why they hadn’t made sure it was off before, but she supposed the sisters had wanted to tease their brother. She smiled to herself, strangely at home in this tavern full of warmth and laughter, and Roy stood up, still swearing -

The coffee stilled at her lips.

She was used to seeing Roy in dress shirts or t-shirts for sleeping, but it made sense he wouldn’t wear those to do manual labor (much as he sucked at it, apparently). It was clear Roy received the brunt of the water from the burst pipe as he stood upright to reach for a nearby dishtowel.

Riza’s mind completely _stopped,_ trying and failing to take in what she saw. _Arms - biceps - shoulders - abs - skin._ Water dripped from his hair, and his arm flexed as he lifted it to shuck his sopping wet bangs off of his forehead. His head tilted with the movement, Riza’s eyes following the lines of muscle along his neck, the jump of his pulse, the slope of his collarbones, the hollow at the base of his throat. Her body felt like it was on fire, consuming her in a way her alchemy never did - suddenly all she could think of was peeling that utterly soaked, practically see-through undershirt off of him, pressing her hands and lips and tongue and teeth to every inch of him, leaving him with this insane, aching, all-consuming _want -_

“Oh, is that the donut?” Roy asked, utterly oblivious to the way Riza was actively losing her mind. Riza nodded mutely, not trusting herself to speak, and he reached forward to snag the donut she had safely tucked away onto a napkin. He took a great bite, flinching when the strawberry jelly spurted out.

“Wash your hands, Roy,” Penny chided.

“It’s fine, I’m using the napkin!” Roy complained. His tongue traced his lower lip, catching stray powdered sugar and the bit of jelly stuck to the corner of his mouth. Riza was about two seconds away from spontaneously combusting. Thank _goodness_ they had destroyed her tattoo, or else she really might have been in danger of that.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Penny insisted. “We have guests -”

“Who, Riza? She’s hardly a guest now,” Roy insisted. Penny rolled her eyes and pushed Roy towards the back kitchen and its working sink, grumbling about her irritating little brother and treating Riza to the view of the flat planes of his back, the way the muscles in his broad shoulders flexed. He glanced back at Riza before he was shoved through the swinging kitchen doors and, just before he vanished from her sight, sent her a wink.

Riza lowered her coffee to the bar without drinking it, her lips scalded on the coffee. She glanced around furtively, but no one seemed to have noticed that Riza had almost lost her fucking mind and jumped their brother. She breathed out a sigh of relief.

And in addition to her scorched mouth, now she was unaccountably craving strawberries.

~

The sun was hot, the late-August heat leaving the air close and muggy. It scorched the top of her head, her shoulders. The heavy wool of the uniform wrapped uncomfortably over her shoulders - she had gained weight, Riza observed that morning. Her cheekbones no longer stood out on her face in two sharp angles. The medals pinned to her chest, however, weighed her down like cement blocks. As she stared up the high steps of Central Command, Riza felt like she was about to be tossed into the ocean and asked to swim.

“Are you ready?” Roy asked beside her. Riza bit back a smile, somewhat bolstered knowing she wasn’t alone.

“No,” Riza confessed. “Are you?”

“Absolutely not,” Roy said. She glanced up at him. Roy had slicked back his hair for the occasion, which all of his sisters warned made him look like a bird. Roy would not hear of washing it out. She eyed him clinically, studying the medals pinned to his lapel, the way his uniform shirt pulled taut over his chest. He had put on weight, too. And muscle.

“Your loops are tangled,” she observed, and she smirked as she went on ahead. Roy cursed softly and fixed the golden braids at his side. His longer legs caught up to her almost immediately once he started moving.

The rest of their walk was silent. Riza breathed in, held it, released, forcing her anxieties to go with it. During the war, she was the near-silent, hyper-focused Flame Witch. In the past six months, she had metamorphosed into reserved, witty Riza Hawkeye. Today would be her first steps in bringing those two identities together. She wondered who she would be.

She and Roy parted ways once they stepped into Central Command’s grand waiting area. Roy would be reporting to his superior officer somewhere in the maze of hallways and offices to their left; Riza would continue straight, walking deeper into Command to meet the Fuhrer himself.

Riza saluted him. The motion was still textbook-perfect. “Staff sergeant.”

Roy returned the salute. “Major.”

Riza left him and continued on. Her clean leather boots squeaked slightly on the marble floors. Her freshly starched uniform swished with every step. Over the murmurs that started up as she passed - sudden, sharp silences turning to frantic muttering - she heard the soft sound of her medals clinking together.

She heard words she hadn’t heard in months on her way through the Central Command halls: _the Flame-Witch, the Hero of Ishval, she’s here, she’s back, she’s so cold -_

But words that once would have felt like pricks of ice settling in her stomach now felt like glancing blows. She heard Rebecca’s snorts at her most outlandish rumors, Vanessa’s words lamenting a world that told women all that they weren’t meant to be, felt Gracia’s gentle, strong hands on her back nudging her forward. Riza walked back into the cold halls and colder expectations of the military and only felt warm and sure, the blanket of kindness the Mustang household had wrapped her in these past six months insulating her against the blizzard.

Riza nodded to the sallow-faced assistant who sat outside the Fuhrer’s office. He saluted her. “Right this way, please, major.”

Riza saluted back. “Appreciated.”

The assistant led her into the room. It was large and spacious, this main conference room where high command gathered to discuss Amestris’s affairs. Riza stood at the head of the table, her gaze sweeping impassively over the generals and Fuhrer. Every single one of them were sour-faced, silver-haired men at least in their fifties. There were no women.

Riza only recognized a few faces: General Grand, who sent her a nod; the older, almost kindly-looking gentleman with glasses who had collapsed at Riza’s state alchemist exam, and the Fuhrer himself.

Riza swung her arm into a salute. “Fuhrer. Generals. State Alchemist Major Riza Hawkeye, reporting.”

The Fuhrer rose to his feet and returned her salute. His motions were smooth and perfect, not an ounce of energy wasted. His salute, too, looked like something out of a textbook. “At ease, Major Hawkeye. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

Riza complied, sitting at the chair at the opposite head of the table from the Fuhrer. She sat up straight, her back not even touching her chair, her chin high and hands folded primly in her lap. The heavy material of her gloves was a soothing weight on her thighs.

“Can I get you anything?” Fuhrer Bradley asked. “Coffee, tea, water?”

Riza wanted to laugh at the idea of the Fuhrer actually serving tea himself. She shook her head. “No, thank you, sir.”

“No need to be so formal, major,” Fuhrer Bradley said. “My goal is to check in with each of my state alchemists individually following the Ishval campaign. How was your leave?”

Riza thought of Lucy in Chris’s tavern snapping, _I am not for sale._ Riza wanted to say, _I am not your alchemist._

Except she was, wasn’t she? A dog of the military, who had gone where she was ordered and done as commanded.

“My leave was satisfactory, sir,” Riza said, refusing to drop the formalities. “I am prepared to return to work. Have you my orders?”

Fuhrer Bradley paused for a moment. Then, to Riza’s surprise, he smiled. The action was surprisingly gentle from the man who had ordered her to kill as-yet-uncounted thousands of people. It crinkled the laugh lines in the outer corner of his blue eye and made him look like any other middle-aged man.

It made Riza’s hands clench together in her lap.

“I do, major,” he said gently. “But I know that returning home from the war can be difficult. It leaves scars on us all - some literally,” he joked, and he smiled and tapped the temple beside his ruined eye with a finger. The rest of the generals chortled, and Riza forced her lips to curl in a smile. “So truly, major, I don’t ask simply to fill the air. I really want to know. How _are_ you holding up?”

There was nothing wrong with the words. They were kind, genuine. But there was something about him, about his tone (warm, placating), about the way his smile was warm but his eye was cold, that sent a chill down the back of Riza’s neck. This warmth was only skin-deep. Something about the tension in the air reminded Riza of the feelings she had just before her father’s mercurial moods started to swing.

Riza let herself smile again, cool and perfunctory. “I have good days and bad days, like any soldier, I’m sure. The good are starting to outweigh the bad, though, a trend that I hope continues.” There. That was enough to suffice.

_(No thanks to you. You sent me into Ishval at eighteen to decimate cities and people, and then you dropped me the moment you’d had your use of me.)_

A brief pause. Riza thought for a moment Fuhrer Bradley would press more, but he only nodded for his assistant to hand something to Riza. A plain envelope materialized in front of her. As Riza reached for it, the Fuhrer said, “I have had several discussions with my fellow members of high command after reviewing your record in Ishval. We believe that you are more than ready to take on additional responsibilities.”

Riza opened her folder and started scanning the topmost letter. This one was signed by the Fuhrer himself. It took a great deal of self-control to stop her eyebrows from steadily rising higher and higher as she read.

“Following careful consideration of your conduct, poise, and especially meritorious service in Ishval,” the Fuhrer said, sounding like he had rehearsed this speech, “You have been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Your placement will be East City, starting exactly two weeks from today. You are granted the option of selecting one personal adjutant-bodyguard. Not that you can’t protect yourself, of course,” Fuhrer Bradley chortled, “But the east is currently...tense, as you can imagine.”

A hell of a way to refer to the genocide Amestris had committed under his command. But Fuhrer Bradley went on, “This is a sign of the military’s recognition of your many sacrifices in Ishval and a reward for your service.”

“I presume, as well, that the presence of the Flame Alchemist so close to Ishval will also quell many potential uprisings before they start,” Riza said. She kept her tone light, matching the Fuhrer’s cadence.

The room was silent for a few moments, the generals seeming to wait with bated breath to see how Fuhrer Bradley would react to this borderline insubordination. Instead, he chuckled. “And you have an eye for politics and strategy as well, Lieutenant Colonel Hawkeye. I think you’ll do very well in East City.”

_Lieutenant Colonel Hawkeye._ The use of the title reminded Riza that this was happening regardless of what she thought. And she had so many thoughts, all spinning through her brilliant mind, more alive and awake now than in months.

Riza rose to her feet. “Thank you for this opportunity, Fuhrer. I won’t let you down.”

She saluted mechanically. Fuhrer Bradley saluted back.

“I have no doubt you will exceed expectations, Lieutenant Colonel,” the Fuhrer said warmly. Riza repressed the shiver that snaked its way down her spine and allowed the Fuhrer’s assistant to walk her out.

~

“Did they kick you out?”

Riza lifted an eyebrow at Roy as he slid onto the stool beside her. This was the first night in weeks she had struggled to sleep like this, and as a result, it was the first night in weeks she and Roy had met down here in the closed-up tavern to sit and talk. Instead of her usual tea, there was a small tumbler of brandy sitting beside her. She’d had enough to soothe the anxious thoughts spinning in her mind, but she was not even close to tipsy.

“Why would you think that?” she asked. Roy reached for an empty glass over the counter and poured himself a measure, as well.

“You’re here, drinking, for one,” Roy said. “And you were very quiet at dinner.”

“I spoke exactly the same as usual,” Riza said, nettled and trying not to show it. She knew she was, because she had carefully considered every conversation she jumped into, weighed every response she gave.

“Yeah but your whole…” Roy flapped a hand toward her. “...was off. So. What’s going on?”

“Why are you awake at three in the morning?” Riza asked. Roy shrugged.

“I never fell asleep.”

“Hm.” Riza considered her brandy, took a small sip. “Nor did I.”

Roy sent her a look that clearly conveyed, _obviously._ Riza sighed, sliding Roy the paper with her orders. Riza watched, faintly amused without meaning to be, as Roy’s eyebrows rose exactly the same way as Riza’s wanted to when she first read them. She watched as he skimmed the paper once, twice, and then passed it back to Riza.

“Well,” he said. He coughed to clear his throat. “That’s quite a lot. What do you think about it?”

What did she think? Riza had spun the question around in her head all day. She thought it was a PR stunt to flaunt the power and privilege afforded to the military’s strongest, youngest, only female alchemist. She thought it was an implicit threat to any remaining Ishvalan refugees who traversed the east, the military’s way of reminding them, _we slaughtered you once and will do so again._ She thought it was a transparent method of making sure their prodigy alchemist toed the line, receiving a rank and responsibilities that far exceeded her age and experience. If she failed, if she acted or spoke out, they would bury her, discredit her for her gender and youth.

The higher the pedestal they erected for her, the farther she would fall.

Riza also spent the afternoon and evening paging through the journal Roy had gotten her (not that he said anything, or signed it, but somehow she _knew)_ brainstorming her choice of personal adjutant. There was only one name on Riza's list.

How was she to start that conversation? How would it even go? _Good day, I know we met less than a year ago, and I’ve already intruded enough on your life by living here for six months, but I have this insane job offer and they’re letting me pick my direct assistant and I can’t think of anyone else I trust this much, will you work for me? With me?_

They were silent for several long minutes. The only sounds between them were their movements as they drank and the ticking of the clock in the corner. Riza had to force herself to stay still and not anxiously tap her fingers against her glass.

Then -

“Roy -”

“Riza -”

They spoke at the same moment, abruptly turning toward one another. Riza swallowed, feeling suddenly very silly and very young.

“Uhm, you first.”

“No, you should,” Roy insisted. He waved a hand like he could prompt her into speaking. “You have seniority, and ladies first, and it’d be better if you went -”

“I’ve already talked enough, you go.”

“What? You’ve hardly talked -”

“Roy,” Riza said, her tone flat and final. “Tell me what it is.”

Roy stuck his tongue out at her. “That’s cheating. And you’re not actually my superior officer.”

_Yeah, about that,_ Riza thought.

Roy drummed his fingers over the wood. “When your back was healing, I mentioned having certain goals in mind.”

“I recall,” Riza said.

Roy considered her for another few moments, his dark eyes flickering between hers. He looked like he was making up his mind of how much he wanted to share with her, an expression she was all too familiar with. She saw when he decided to tell her everything anyway, could pinpoint almost the exact moment he thought, _ah, to hell with it._

“I plan to become Fuhrer one day,” Roy told her.

Riza’s eyebrow rocketed to her hairline. _That_ was unexpected. Roy had not struck her as someone with much interest in, nor a head for, politics. As if sensing her thoughts, Roy laughed dryly into his hands. “I know, I know. It sounds crazy. But after the war, all I saw were exhausted, traumatized soldiers being congratulated by a Fuhrer who never even saw Ishval. All I could think of were the thousands upon thousands of people dead, on both sides of the conflict, and the people in charge of it all and who gave the orders didn’t care. We were used as fodder, as parts in their war machine. We killed thousands of innocent people, and we were going home to be lauded as heroes.”

_I’m not sure I want to be celebrated for killing people,_ Roy confessed to her under a starry desert sky. Part of her wondered if she would always wish, just a little, that she could go back to the night that they met, sit in those last remaining moments of innocence before anything she had left to call childhood was obliterated. Riza’s lips parted, even if she didn’t have anything to say. Roy plowed on.

“And...and all I could think was how wrong it all felt. How horrible it was, how much I hated it. How powerless and small I felt when I expressed my concerns to Grand only to have him threaten me.”

“He _what?”_ Riza snapped sharply. Roy shrugged.

“I wanted to refuse my medal. He told me he didn’t give a damn and told me to smile for the Central cameras. He threatened to court-martial not just me, but my entire regiment. And I couldn’t do that to them, so I just...swallowed my concerns. I did nothing.” He looked at his hands. “Even now, though, I wonder - what could I have done? Gone to the papers? Deserted?

“I’m a Xingese-Amestrian orphan who was raised in a brothel. I only have a high school education. I don’t have connections, esteem, a noble lineage, money - I’ve no _power._ Anything I could have leveraged was given to me by the military, and it could be taken away just as easily. And if I deserted, I’d be court-martialed. My family wouldn’t have my pay or my military connections, and as good as the business is doing, we’re a large family. And we grow every other year. Money is always a consideration. And if I’d left, nothing would have _changed._ They would have transferred in another sniper from the academy and kept right on going. So I did nothing. And I hate myself for it, Riza.”

He tipped his drink back, sipping. Riza considered him in a new light, like she had never seen him before. She wished she could empathize, but she knew she couldn’t. She was a descendant from a wealthy family. She had the privileges of wealth and class and everything that pertained. She was brilliant, and prodigy in her field, and she had the advantage of being raised by a true scholar who, for better or worse, devoted himself wholeheartedly to her education.

For all the ways she and Roy were similar, Riza mused, she sometimes forgot the manifold ways they were different.

Riza spoke softly. “You don’t yet have the power to make change. So you need to amass it.”

“It sounds so mercenary when you say it like that,” Roy grumbled.

Riza smiled dryly. Without judgment, she said, “It is.”

Roy shrugged. “At least I’m honest about my ambitions. I just - Riza, you know what we did. If we walked through the Central streets indiscriminately shooting people or blowing up buildings, we would be executed on the spot. But we do it in a war and we’re lauded for it. It’s sick and wrong and there’s no accountability. I want to grow and climb and make change within this military when I can, and then I want to take over as Fuhrer and tear it all apart. Start anew. And create that accountability for the crimes we committed.”

“Even if it kills us,” Riza said.

“Even if it kills us,” Roy confirmed, and then he blinked, realizing what she said. “Wait. You said ‘us.’ Are you on board?”

“Does that surprise you?” Riza asked, lifting a brow.

“A little,” Roy admitted. “Actually, a lot. At least so...quickly.”

Riza shook her head. “You know how I feel about the war. I chose to follow the orders I was given. And now I’m being rewarded for it. Used as a puppet to continue terrorizing the people I murdered, and as a prop to make the military look better, but rewarded nevertheless.” She finished her drink, fortifying herself with liquid courage. She set down her glass and looked up at Roy. “You want to be Fuhrer. How do I help you get there?”

Roy’s mouth worked. Then he said, “Take me with you to East City.”

Riza tilted her head. It was...eerie, how closely aligned her and Roy’s goals and hopes were, regardless of whether they had actually verbally expressed them. “I have a proposition for you.”

“What is it?” Roy asked.

Riza considered. _“If_ I help you climb the ranks - _if_ you become Fuhrer -”

“When,” Roy corrected her.

“Don’t interrupt me,” Riza said, sending him a deadpan glare. Roy mimed zipping his lips shut. _“When_ you become Fuhrer, your first set of actions will be to fully rebuild Ishval. Its infrastructure, its buildings, its holy sites. You will work with the Ishvalan people to restore it. Because you know that Ishval will be left to rot in that desert, its people starving and dying in squalor in our streets and history lost, until we enter high enough positions to do anything.

“You will rebuild Ishval, and Amestris will atone for its crimes. I will rebuild it brick by brick, stone by stone, tile by tile if need be. Then you can execute me. Deal?”

It was Roy’s turn to look at her like he was seeing her, truly and openly, for the first time. He nodded. “Deal. I feel like I’m getting a much better bargain here.”

“I don’t care for power. I just need these wrongs made right.” Riza took a breath. “In that case. You will join me as my personal adjutant and bodyguard. I will drag you up, kicking and screaming, through the ranks with me. When you become Fuhrer, you will restore Ishval, return Amestris to the people, and secure accountability for every state alchemist and leader involved in Amestris’s crimes against humanity.” She held out a hand. “Staff sergeant?”

Roy pondered that for another moment. “It’s warrant officer now.”

Riza rolled her eyes. Smirking, Roy put his hand in hers. His skin was warm against hers.

“Lieutenant Colonel Hawkeye,” Roy said.

“Warrant Officer Mustang,” Riza replied.

They shook on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it may be obvious, but do NOT use these methods of tattoo removal, i am BEGGING you. 
> 
> thank you so much for reading!!! please leave a comment and share your thoughts!! 💖as always, i can be found on tumblr at notantherwritingblog.tumblr.com! thanks again!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an iconic partnership is not off to an auspicious start.
> 
> CW for discussions of anxiety, racism, and misogyny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!! so sorry for the delay. this chapter took some time to come together until i was satisfied with it, but hopefully future chapters should be better. as always, a million thanks to the incredible, patient edits of WhiteDoveSails.
> 
> also, you may notice that the anticipated length of this story has doubled. i hope that's okay!!! this is rapidly becoming a monster that cannot be contained and i am so very very excited.

## 

chapter 8.

Eight o’clock was, in Roy’s estimation, far too early to be awake for anything short of a national catastrophe.

Unfortunately, according to Lieutenant Colonel Hawkeye and the rest of the military, eight o’clock was the start of the work day.

Roy filed in behind Riza, muffling an enormous yawn behind his hand, and took his first look at their new office. It appeared to be a repurposed closet at the end of an out-of-the-way hallway: two desks, one situated below the one (large, at least) window, the other pressed up against a wall. The third wall was taken over with bookshelves and filing cabinets.

No, not a closet, Roy mused, yawning again. This was meant to be an office, but definitely not one built for two.

Riza stood still in the middle of the room, her eyes scanning their surroundings like she was looking for a threat or a prank. Dully, Roy figured that was probably his job, except he hadn’t thought that they would need to worry about those threats even in the middle of Eastern Command. Riza went to her new desk and started opening drawers. They squeaked, tell-tale signs of age and lack of use and poorly-oiled joints.

Judging by the distance in her eyes, she was miles away, thinking, so Roy only walked to his own desk to sit and wait her out. After about two minutes, Riza looked up.

“We have no supplies.”

Roy lifted an eyebrow. “Come again?”

Riza huffed out a sigh. “We have no - no paper, no notes, no _pens._ Hardly any books. No schedule, or planner, or calendar, and nothing more useful than a piece of paper telling us our own office number and a _map.”_

She was standing very straight and very still, Roy observed at last, his gut clenching with guilt. Telltale signs to anyone who knew her - which was just him, now, he realized - that she was overwhelmed and her anxiety was spiking. Because she was twenty and returning from a war and she had just been promoted to a rank about five years beyond her age and experience with no support or guidance and she was _floundering._ So Roy stood up and walked to her desk, placing his hands down on it so he was a bit more at her level.

“Riza.”

She blinked, looking surprised that he had suddenly appeared in front of her. “Lieutenant colonel. We’re at work.”

“Lieutenant colonel,” Roy corrected, because arguing with her was not going to help. “Breathe with me. It’s alright. It’s day one. No one is expecting you to be fully set up and ready on the first day.”

“That’s rather the issue, warrant officer,” Riza said, her voice cold. “The expectation is I’ll fail.”

Roy winced internally. Alright, he walked into that one. Of course Riza was thinking from a bigger picture perspective than he was - Roy was different from his fellow officers in terms of class, race, training, but he was at least on a level field with them in that he was a _man._ Riza was, as far as Roy had yet seen, the only female ranked officer here in Eastern Command.

That was just one more thing on the list of things to change, then.

“But you won’t fail,” Roy said. “Let’s take it a day at a time. We’re not going to change the nation in a day.”

Riza took a deep breath. “You’re right. I apologize for my actions.” She hadn’t done anything more than stand still and look like she was a million miles away, but Roy wasn’t going to correct her on that. “For today, let’s familiarize ourselves with the layout of Eastern Command. Find the mess hall, archives, mail center, requisition center, and shooting range.”

“But you don’t shoot,” Roy said, confused. Although he probably should teach her, just in case he was ever incapacitated. He’d be a poor bodyguard if he didn’t make sure she was able to take care of herself without him. He wanted her self-sufficient, not dependent on him.

Not that she _couldn’t_ take care of herself well enough without him already. But if something ever happened to her gloves, if he was unable to come to her aid...

Riza lifted an eyebrow. “I meant for you, warrant officer. It’s been a while since you’ve shot a gun.”

Roy lifted a brow. “I’m trying not to be insulted.”

“I meant -” Riza huffed out a sigh when she realized he was joking. “I just meant, bodyguard expectations and work aside, shooting is something you’re good at, something that can center you the way research and alchemy can for me. And now that’s another thing to consider, how I’m going to balance my research responsibilities with the work.”

She was getting tangled in the weeds again. Roy bit back a sigh that was going to come out more fond than exasperated, and he _could not_ start their professional partnership on that note. “Lieutenant colonel. We’ll get to that. For now, let’s supply this damn office. And, I’m begging you, can we _please_ get some coffee?”

Riza sent him a look. _“Your_ version of coffee, or mine?”

And if she was feeling herself enough again to tease him, then Roy would consider his job well done.

They spent the first morning essentially wandering around Eastern Command, getting lost and turned around and good-naturedly bickering over the map. Roy learned that Riza was brilliant in almost every regard except her head for directions. The number of times that she tried to lead them in the exact _opposite_ direction from where they needed to be was incredibly endearing, especially when she refused to give up the map and insisted on continuing to lead, because she was going to learn, dammit, and she would not sacrifice her independence for anything.

(She did not say such in as many words, but that was her intention, and Roy respected that.)

They found a break room, but they received about two dozen stares from faces whose expressions ranged from blank-eyed to curious to suspicious. Roy would not have wanted to stay in any case, but then Riza peered down into the coffee pot and saw that it had overheated and congealed into a blackish sludge at the bottom.

They exchanged a single look and left the room without exchanging a word with the staring crowd. It wasn’t a great start, but if that’s what passed for coffee around here, Roy wasn’t sure he wanted to be friends with them, anyway.

Roy remembered a little café he had passed on his way into the office that morning, so they decided to go there. They ordered their breakfast sandwiches from the sweet-looking, baby-faced teen working there and got their coffees to go. Roy felt almost human now that he had caffeine in his hand, mocha made with sweet chocolate and a dash of cinnamon, and Riza - the lieutenant colonel, he supposed he ought to change the way he referred to her in his head - sent him a dubious look as she sipped her black, bold roast coffee.

At least she would be easy to get coffee for, Roy mused.

They meandered through Eastern Command’s halls. They found the enormous mess hall, with its long tables and ugly green tiled floor and fluorescent lights; the archives, which occupied almost the entirety of the basement; the shooting range, which occupied the rest of the ground level; and the requisitions office, where the lieutenant colonel filled out the necessary forms and then they carried stacks of notebooks, pads of paper, a planner, calendar, and half a dozen boxes of pens back to the office.

Which was, of course, why when they made it back to their office, it was to find a stack of files and folders in the _In_ tray on Riza’s desk.

“You’re shitting me,” Roy mumbled, setting down his things onto his own desk and walking to Riza’s. She sent him a look that was probably supposed to discourage him from swearing at work, but she quickly turned her attention back to the stacks. She hefted several files up into her arms, flicking through the pages. Her bangs fell over her eyes, and Roy looked away, swallowing a sip of lukewarm coffee and then picking up a few papers of his own. He scanned requisition reports, supplies orders for smaller military outposts throughout the east, _more_ requisition reports, leave requests, transportation reimbursements, food reimbursements…

Grunt work, Roy realized. This was all grunt work, and judging by the amount of paper, this was the backlogged, extra paperwork of at least two different superior officers. He glanced at Riza to gauge her reaction. Her expression was neutral, placid, indifferent. But not surprised. That pissed Roy off the most, he thought.

Ship her out here with no support, no guidance, elevate her to a position far beyond her experience, bury her in work that wasn’t hers to do, and leave her to fester.

But outright getting angry wouldn’t accomplish anything, nor did he think Riza would appreciate it. So Roy took half of his own pile to his desk, set it on a corner, and started organizing his desk. Notebooks, planners, paper, pens. There was a phone on his desk with a faded slip of paper noting its phone number. He opened the pocketbook and started to write down the number on the inner page.

_Direct number - 555.2334. X8777_

He crossed to Riza’s desk, where she, too, was organizing her things. Except hers seemed to actually have some semblance of order to them, whereas Roy’s were generally piled up. He asked her, “What’s your phone number?”

“Office or home?”

“You already have your home phone memorized?” Roy asked before he could stop himself. He snapped his mouth shut, feeling stupid. Of course she knew her own phone number.

“Yes,” Riza said, and she rattled off the numbers quickly. “Though don’t write my home phone number in your workbook. In case it gets lost.”

Lest someone be able to track down the home address of the Flame Alchemist from her phone number. Feeling his ears burn red, Roy scratched out her phone number with his pen. He muttered, “Sorry.”

Riza sighed. “It’s alright.” She reached for a file. “I guess we just...go through these?” She started paging through them. “It’s just… I review, check the boxes, make sure everything is in line? Make sure the reimbursements aren’t ridiculous?” Her tone included the loud but unspoken, _is that it?_

“We should probably read up on military policy,” Roy said, out loud with his mouth. He wondered who the hell he was and what had happened to Roy Mustang. Riza looked up from her desk, brow quirked like she was wondering the exact same thing.

“I suppose the stories are true,” Riza observed. “War changes a man.”

Roy laughed self-deprecatingly. “And a woman.” He stood up. “C’mon, let’s head to the archives. We’ll probably be able to find policy there.”

Riza nodded and stood to leave their office again. “That’s a good idea. We’ll head down, get some of the military handbooks, familiarize ourselves with the policies and procedures, and then we can organize the papers here. It’ll be slow going for the first week, but we can handle it.”

Roy nodded bracingly. If he put more energy into it than the gesture strictly demanded, it was to placate and reassure Riza rather than show any eagerness to read tomes of military policy.

They found the archives again with only one wrong turn that Riza quickly caught and corrected. She grinned up at Roy in passing as she spun on her heel, her shined shoes squeaking over the tiled floor, and went off in the other direction. Roy had to suppress a fond sigh for the second time that day as he turned as well to follow her. The librarian lifted an eyebrow at the sight of them a second time in the same day; it seemed she wasn’t used to people coming at all, let alone more than once. But she was pleasant enough as she handed Riza a few copies of policy handbooks, and she sent them (mostly Roy, though, if her smile was any indication) a wave as they left. Riza was already flipping through the handbooks as she left, and Roy followed after her.

When they arrived back in their office, however, it was to find an unexpected, unwelcome sight. Riza froze, stopping abruptly just over the threshold that Roy bumped into her. He looked over her shoulder and his stomach lurched uncomfortably.

Riza swung her arm into a salute once she adjusted her grip on her books. “General Grand, sir.”

Roy followed suit, lifting his arm and standing at attention. His mouth was too dry to form words.

General Grand turned toward them from where he had been standing at Riza’s desk. His gaze swept over the office, clearly unimpressed with the meager size and lack of...anything, really. “Lieutenant Colonel,” He said, nodding to Riza. He looked at Roy, and he fought the urge to step away. “Warrant Officer.”

Roy nodded back. The scar along his side twinged uncomfortably.

“To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure, General?” Riza asked.

General Grand’s gaze swept impassively over them again before he frowned down at Riza. “I came to express my disappointment that you were unable to attend our meeting this afternoon.”

Riza’s back, if it were possible, went even stiffer. “Meeting, sir?”

“Yes,” General Grand said. “The meeting among upper-level officers stationed in Eastern Command. Set for every other week, Monday afternoons at one o’clock. The rest of the senior leadership was quite...disconcerted with your lack of attendance, as well. I hope you do not believe that your prestige from Ishval exempts you from your official duties.”

Roy bit his tongue to stop himself snapping. _You asshole,_ he wanted to hiss, _You know it’s her first day, you know she had no means of knowing that -_

“It is your responsibility to know of and attend all meetings required of your station,” General Grand was saying, his tone condescending. “If you cannot do even that much, I will need to pass on my grievances to the Fuhrer.” His gaze now shifted to Roy. “If your assistant is not up to even so simple a task as arranging your schedule, I will provide a replacement as I see fit and assign Warrant Officer Mustang a role that better suits his _capabilities.”_

Judging by the way he said the word, General Grand’s opinion on Roy’s abilities was quite clear.

“I apologize for my absence, General,” Riza replied with truly saintlike aplomb. Only the rigidity of her spine and the muscles in her neck hinted at anything resembling the emotion toiling below the surface. “It is, as you said, ultimately _my_ responsibility to know of and attend necessary meetings. I will ensure such an oversight does not happen again. And as I am Warrant Officer Mustang’s superior officer, any perceived failures on his part fall onto my shoulders, as well. If you have concerns with his performance, I must ask that you take them up directly with _me._ I will institute corrective measures as needed.”

General Grand eyed them critically. His lip curled below his mustache, but it seemed Riza’s diplomatic response denied him any ammunition to continue. He only nodded. “See to it that you do. I will see you soon, Lieutenant Colonel.”

He did not even acknowledge Roy as he swept out of the room, even as they both returned to their salutes. He did not shut the door on his way out, but Roy quietly closed the heavy door, anyway.

He turned to Riza, who was setting down the policy texts on her desk. She lay both her palms flat on the wood, staring down at the gold-embossed covers. Roy watched her rigid shoulders, her stoic expression, the determined set of her mouth.

Roy’s mind spun, thinking of what to say. _You stood up for me,_ he wanted to start. _Thank you, why,_ he wanted to ask. _I didn’t realize my performance would affect how they viewed yours,_ he wanted to assure her, to apologize, because he felt like a fool for not thinking it sooner, for not realizing that she was under scrutiny for how she led him as much as she was for her own actions. _Grand knew you didn’t know about the meeting, he just wanted to pick a fight, he wanted to single you out, throw his weight around and intimidate you and insinuate you didn’t know how to do your job,_ he wanted to storm.

But he knew she would only look at him with those steady dark eyes of hers and say, _I know._

Words and anger and emotion, however well-intentioned, would not give her the support she needed. So Roy stepped up to her desk. “Lieutenant Colonel.”

Riza’s head snapped up. Roy said, “Tell me what to do.”

Her body language did not relax, but somehow Roy knew he had at last done something right that day. Riza nodded once. “Alright.”

Roy spent the rest of the first day finding every other adjutant he could, striking up conversations and relying on the star-struck soldiers and secretaries to find the different meeting schedules of the higher-ups. He went back to their office with a packed calendar at a run, because there was a meeting at three o’clock to discuss military supply chains and rebuilding efforts of eastern towns affected by the war that Grand definitely intended Riza to miss, and he refused to let her be left out of this important work.

The appreciative look Riza sent him just before they walked through the doors would have made Roy’s day in any case, but the startled, almost angry expression General Grand made before he smoothed his features over was the cherry on top.

Riza did not need him to protect her in the middle of a meeting - at least, not physically, unless she was suddenly alright with Roy punching Grand in the face, which he doubted - so he returned to their office. He took their desk calendar and tacked it to the wall. Then he wrote down every meeting he had learned of that day, along with their room location and time. He was especially proud of color-coding them: blue for general military work, such as reimbursements, numbers, or updates; green for anything pertaining to the state alchemist program; red for anything relating to Ishval. When he was finished, he pulled their files together, and started to sort them into stacks depending on urgency.

When Riza returned to the office an hour later, her face smoothed into an expressionless mask, it was to see Roy sorting his way through his own pile of files. These were the ones in the “urgent, but did not require the lieutenant colonel to sign off” category. It was smaller than Roy would have liked, but he needed to start somewhere.

She stopped in the doorway, looking up from the new stack of folders and blinking at the room. Though small, it actually resembled an office now. She blinked when Roy stood up to send her a salute.

“Lieutenant Colonel.”

Riza saluted back automatically. “You -” she started. “You don’t need to do that every time I walk in.”

“Alright,” Roy said. That was fine with him. He dropped his arm and folded his arms behind his back. “How was the meeting?”

Riza bit back a smile. “A waste of time, as you know. Would you sort these, please?” she asked, holding the folders out to him. “I’ll get started on my own work.”

Roy nodded, reaching forward to clasp the files. He sat down to arrange them, surreptitiously glancing at Riza as he did so. There was a genuine smile on her face for the first time that day as she took her seat at the head of the room.

~

The rest of their week went just about as well as the first day.

Which is to say, it did not.

For one, once the rest of the higher-ups heard that there was a new lower officer to kick around, they, too, started leaving their paperwork in the office’s inbox. Roy’s hand was cramped and his sleeves were smudged black with ink stains and his back ached at the end of each day.

For another, they had multiple meetings that week, some that Roy needed to attend with the lieutenant colonel and others he did not. He wasn’t sure which was worse. On the one hand, not attending meetings with her meant that he had more time to do their paperwork, bringing them up from “critically overwhelmed” to simply “really fucking overwhelmed.” Secondly, he just really, _really_ hated meetings.

On the other hand, Roy hated leaving Riza to attend them alone more.

Because Lieutenant Colonel Riza Hawkeye, the Flame Witch, the Hero of Ishval, was little more than a potted plant in these conference rooms. She was relegated to the end of their long table to take notes, as if she was expected not to speak unless spoken to, except of course she spoke anyway. She spoke and was barely remarked on, or her ideas were condescended to, or they were ignored and then restated, badly, a few minutes later as an original idea. And _then_ the idea was clever and progressive and the answer to all their problems.

It was maddening. Infuriating. It left Roy curling his hands into fists under the table, biting his tongue to stop himself from snapping. He had been doing that a lot that week.

It left him feeling stupid and useless, both as a protector and a bodyguard as well as a friend. When Roy brought this up to her on Friday night - his frustration with the way she was treated, not his own feelings of inadequacy - Riza only sent him a resigned smile.

“I expected this,” she confessed. “Of course, I hoped I would be wrong. But between my gender, my youth, my lack of experience, and my power, I am a dangerous and uncomfortable reminder that a reckoning is coming to the status quo. They’re going to try and keep me down and burn me out before I can start to climb and change any more.”

Roy did not reply at first. Riza scribbled her signature on a few more pages. Roy traced her loose, flowing, elegant script with his eyes and internally lamented his own chicken scratch. Then she sighed, the soft sound loud in their office. It was long past the time they should have each gone home, but there was just _so much work_ to do.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She held her pen tighter than strictly necessary between her fingers. “I know this isn’t what you wanted. There is a chance that I am holding you back from a more rapid advancement than your skills may merit. If you want to leave my command, only say the word. I won’t hold it against you.”

Roy stared down at her. He thought, _do you want me to leave?_ But that wasn’t what she said. She thought she was the one letting him down, the one holding _him_ back. As if Roy would have even gotten this far, professionally or emotionally, without her.

Roy reached to pick up the stack of completed folders. “Are you done with these?”

“Yes,” Riza said. There was a question in her eyes.

Roy lifted the stack into his arms. “I’ll go drop off these papers. Do you need anything else from me today?”

Riza blinked up at him. Her lips parted in surprise for a moment before she schooled her features again. “No.”

Roy saluted her. “Then I will be off.”

He left, dropping off stacks and stacks of papers. He frowned in thought as his shoes echoed off of the floors. Eastern was quiet and deserted at half-past seven on a Friday night. Most people were long gone, out on the town or back in the barracks. Roy deposited his files of meaningless minutiae in several different mailboxes: two for a set of elderly brigadier generals riding the desk until retirement, another for a snobby colonel Roy dearly wished would transfer elsewhere. It was close to eight by the time Roy finished his duties, and he stretched his neck side to side as he made his way down the stairs outside of Eastern Command. There was a niggling feeling in his stomach, the same one he got when he felt like he was doing something wrong.

_I know this isn’t what you wanted._ Riza’s voice echoed in his head. _If you want to leave my command, only say the word._

He couldn’t get the look on Riza’s face when he left out of his head. Weary, resigned, like she thought she was letting him down by not immediately rocketing to the top of military command in a week. Like she was disappointing him somehow. Like she thought he would leave when it turned out things weren’t working out the way they hoped.

Roy stopped in the middle of the steps. Turned around. Looked up to the farthest left side of the building where their office-slash-closet was located. Saw the faint glow of light shining in their office.

Wasn’t that what he was doing now, though? Going home while she stayed and worked late into the evening, even when she didn’t have to, even when the work was not all hers. Roy snarled in frustration at the unfairness of it all, but most especially at himself for even making it this far.

He jogged off down the stairs with renewed purpose now, thinking. He was her adjutant, yes. Responsible for carrying out any of her orders, assisting her, and generally serving as her right-hand man. He was her bodyguard, not that she needed it. The lieutenant colonel was, funnily enough, rather well-known for her battle prowess. Some nights, Roy played back the first time he saw her in Ishval, a whip of pure fire curling around her as she won a four-to-one fight.

But protection extended further than just the physical, Roy knew. He pictured the soft-spoken woman he once shared a fire with. The silent, grieving, self-flagellating woman who put herself together again across the hall from him these past six months. The military was hard on her, pushing her to the brink and piling ever-more work on her, but the loudest and most critical voice in Riza Hawkeye’s head was her own.

And Roy almost just _left her there._ Roy nearly snarled at himself as he picked up his bags from this local takeout restaurant, except that would have only freaked out the cashier. His bag smelled of chicken and fried food as he made his way back to Command. Its halls were still empty and dim as the lights were only half-on to conserve power. He took a breath outside of their office and knocked on the door, feeling stupidly, childishly nervous for no good reason.

“Come in,” the lieutenant colonel said. Only Roy would have caught the faint upswing at the end of the phrase, signifying the automatic response and the confusion. Roy opened the door and watched Riza’s eyes go wide and her mouth fall open slightly as she took in the sight of him.

“Ro - warrant officer,” Riza corrected herself. She studied him in wide-eyed incredulity. “What are you doing here?” She glanced at the clock. “It’s past twenty-hundred hours. I believe I sent you home an hour ago.”

“You gave me _permission_ to leave,” Roy gently corrected as he stepped through the door and kicked it gently shut behind him. He approached her desk and tried to act nonchalant, like they did this all the time. Riza continued to stare as he shuffled papers aside, moving three stacks to his own desk in order to find space for the bag of takeout.

“I,” Riza started with no clear idea of where her sentence was going. Roy took advantage of her surprise to set a carton of noodles and egg rolls in front of her. Roy pulled out his own meal and dragged his chair over to sit in front of Riza’s desk. He had opened his carton and dug his chopsticks in by the time Riza spoke again.

“You remembered my Xingese food order,” she said. Her voice was soft, wondering. Unbelievably touched for a woman presented with a carton of cheap, greasy food. But Roy heard the _why,_ the _thank you,_ the _I didn’t expect you to come back or ask for this but I appreciate it nonetheless._

Roy shrugged a shoulder, trying to act nonchalant. “‘Course I did.”

_Of course I did. I care about you. I'm here to look out for you. I’m here for the long haul._

_I’m not going anywhere._

Riza moved her paperwork safely aside and opened her container. She had not managed to get the hang of chopsticks, much to Jingyi and Bai Jie’s well-intentioned teasing. She gratefully accepted the fork Roy dug out of the bag and dug in hungrily. They hadn’t eaten since lunch that day. Roy wondered how much longer she would have gone, forgoing food and drink and sleep, to work if he had not come back.

“This is really good,” Riza said with her mouth full. “Not as good as your sisters’ of course. Don’t tell them I said that.”

“That’s because they cook with love and zero concern for spice tolerance,” Roy said.

“No, just no concern for _yours,”_ Riza replied, and Roy fought the urge to stick his tongue out at her like a child. The teasing comment was the closest she had come to laughing since she started their placement on Monday.

“Is that not the most important?” Roy asked.

Riza _laughed,_ finally, and Roy had missed the sound. He had missed the laugh lines on the outer corners of her eyes, the way her nose scrunched up, the gleam of her teeth when she smiled. For the first time since they started work that week, Riza looked relaxed, hopeful.

And finally, Roy felt his role slip into place.

~

It took some time, and a lot of fumbling starts and stops, but after a few weeks Roy and the lieutenant colonel found their footing. August faded into September rained into October, and they settled into a routine that was comfortable and stable, if really, really, _really_ boring.

Roy had not even known that there were this many _forms_ in the military before this started. And he knew there were still loads he had not yet seen. His days were taken up by the bureaucratic shuffle of _what_ and _who_ and _where_ as shipping confirmations, requisition orders, leave requests, equipment usage, and inter-office memos piled up around them. Occasionally on his rounds he would catch glimpses of the tops of confidential documents of ongoing investigations, but these papers were quickly covered or shuffled away before more stacks of work were shoved into his hands.

The blatant misogyny and racism would have been insulting if it also wasn’t just so... _stupid._ The military had shipped the Flame-Witch and Deadshot out to the east so the senior staff and Fuhrer could keep capitalizing on their renown, right? The same military that was now trying to rebuild the east? So why were they forcing two of their most popular veterans (much as Roy _loathed_ this line of thinking) to essentially count beans and push papers? Wouldn’t their position be much more powerful if there was actually evidence of them actually _doing things?_

But no, Roy mused, exhausted and irritated and warily amused. They could not do that, because actually showing that the one and only female alchemist and her Xingese-Amestrian adjutant were damn good at their jobs would ultimately cause more problems than they solved.

There were a lot of times that this hypocritical treatment sucked. When he and Riza were eyed in the cafeteria for sitting together. Or when Riza overheard in the bathroom stall the first batch of rumors about her relationship with her adjutant. Or when _Roy_ heard the rumors about _his_ relationship with his superior.

But by far the worst were the bi-weekly meetings among superior officers of Eastern Command, attended by two brigadier generals who dozed through the sessions (when they bothered to show up), General Grand, a few lackluster lieutenants, and one Colonel McCany.

Roy generally considered himself a reasonable, level-headed man. Yet Colonel McCany made Roy want to grit his teeth and/or break the colonel’s, and he was hard-put to determine which would crack first, his enamel or his resolve.

Colonel McCany was, to put it eloquently, a _fucking asshole._ He was the one most responsible for the lieutenant colonel’s chronic backlog of paperwork, because he kept foisting it on them. He sucked up to Grand and the other brigadier generals while talking over Riza every other time she spoke. On more than one occasion, Roy had witnessed the man tell Riza why her plans for eastern reconstruction would not work and in the next breath express the _exact same idea as his own._ Roy found this particularly galling for a man who had never once stepped foot in Ishval. He said a lot of nonsense about supporting the returning soldiers in their healing, in finding jobs, in furthering their education, in higher salaries, except every time Riza suggested something that would actually _accomplish those goals,_ McCany would imply Riza was too young and stupid to know what she was talking about, trying to support all the big strong men who went to war.

He said that. To a veteran. A fairly famous one, too, in Roy’s estimation.

It was the most recent meeting that was the final straw that broke Roy’s back and patience -

(“I think the government could contract out automail mechanics to replace the limbs of soldiers injured in battle,” Riza suggested, only for Colonel McCany to speak over her in the middle of her sentence, arguing, “But where would the military get the _money_ for such contracts? The materials? How would we find suitable mechanics for our soldiers? I worry that this proposal is not fully fleshed out.”

“You will see on your handout in front of you, Colonel McCany, that I offer answers to all of those questions, if you will turn to the meeting agenda - ” Riza started.

“Moreover, I fear the current budget does not allow for such expenditures,” Colonel McCany said. “Instead, I suggest we reallocate funds from the irrigation project to the east -” and he then proceed to list off every suggestion Riza had made on her handouts as his own, except he substituted the funds for the much-needed irrigation project (which would help both eastern citizens and Ishvalan refugees) in place of Riza’s suggested State Alchemist research budget. Roy had clenched his teeth so tightly his jaw cracked.)

“So, lieutenant colonel,” Roy said as he leaned back in his chair one day. This tangent was brought on by opening his fourth file in a row that was from the Office of Col. McCany and not _their own work._ “I understand why it is frowned upon for me to physically pick a fight with McCany. But why are you not speaking up when he keeps pushing all his paperwork onto you?”

“This again?” Riza asked. She directed her raised eyebrow to her papers. “You know why.”

“I don’t,” Roy said easily. He turned in his chair to look at her. “I was a soldier, lieutenant colonel. I know hazing when I see it. This is _not_ hazing. We’re well past that. This is something else. And I think you know it.”

Riza sighed. Her pen scratched against the papers. “Why are you pushing this?”

“Because you deserve better than this,” Roy said honestly. Riza’s head jerked up as she met his gaze for the first time in this conversation. “And I want to understand why you’re not pushing back. You didn’t struggle with it before.”

His reference to General Grand’s latent threats made Riza’s eyes soften. She set down her pen with a sigh, glancing at the clock like she was mentally starting a stopwatch for this conversation. “Look. If I were a man, I would have no qualms marching up to that jerk and giving him a piece of my mind. It would be expected of me. But I’m a woman. The same display that a man would be called brave for would be reduced to hysteria. The maverick who doesn’t play by the rules becomes the over-emotional woman who can’t handle a little stress. It’s _anticipated_ that I’ll fall behind and grow angry and resentful and lash out. I could be transferred away from the east, or Grand could separate us. So I have to dot my i’s and cross my t’s. I have to play by their rules to beat them at their game. I have to be _perfect.”_

She sent him a sardonic smile. It only served to chill Roy. There was something dark in her eyes, in her smile, like she was remembering things she would rather not. “So I will be.”

She needed to be perfect? Fine. Roy would help her. If it was the only way to get ahead, to support her, to put McCany in his place, he would do it.

~

The shooting range in the basement of Eastern Command was not nearly as nice as the one at the academy or Central. It was smaller, a little darker, dingier. There was another section outside that offered better conditions for sniping, but it was raining that evening, and Roy was…

He was not ready to pick up his rifle yet.

He had not yet told Riza about this problem, though he knew that he would need to soon if he didn’t get his shit together. But in some ways the point was moot: were he to tag along missions providing backup for her, he would not be sniping anyway. Which was why Roy was here after work, standing at the end of the firing line, staring down at the pistol sitting innocuously on the shelf. It was a standard-issue rental: Roy would need to purchase one of his own in order to really make it feel like an extension of his being.

There was a group of soldiers chattering a few stalls down from him. They kept joking loud enough to be heard even above the muffs he kept securely over his ears. He furrowed his brow, eavesdropping, and then he realized the earmuffs were _why_ they were speaking so freely.

“...was surprised when I saw her in the mess. Y’know, they call her _witch,_ I was expecting something like an old crone,” one of the soldiers was saying. “And then this pretty little thing sat a few tables away, and...” he gave a low whistle.

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting her to be so…” a second voice piped up. He made an obscene shape of a woman’s silhouette with his hands. “I’ll say, evil bitch she may be, but she can get her claws in me any time she likes.”

“Like she’d go for you, Johnson,” a third voice said. “She’s looking for a real man, someone to _take care of her._ You plan to bring her back to your flat with three roommates?”

“Better than Gregor, living with my _parents.”_

“Guess that leaves me,” the third voice spoke again over the first man’s protestations. “Just gotta get her away from that adjutant of hers. Catch her alone and show her what a good time looks like.”

_Okay,_ Roy thought. His lip curled. _I think I’ve heard enough._

He lifted the pistol in his hand. He measured the weight in his palms, the sturdiness of the handle and the barrel. He lifted it, measured his breaths. The outside noise fell away, finally. The loud voices with their crude statements faded to a faint buzz. Even the thrum of irritation under his skin soothed itself as Deadshot picked up a gun for the first time in six months.

Six shots rang out. When Roy pulled his earmuffs down around his neck and pressed the button to bring the target paper toward him, he found that the trio had at last been silenced.

Roy studied the target paper critically. It wasn’t his best work - three in the head, two in the heart, one in the groin. One of the soldiers gulped audibly when Roy clipped on the safety. Roy knew the exact moment the others knew who he was because all three went white and still.

Roy lifted a brow at them. “Evening, gentlemen.”

Roy went to the station to get himself another sheet of paper. The other three were gone by the time he turned around.

Roy sighed as he reloaded his clip. He planted his feet, squared his shoulders, and fired. This round was easier, smoother, his shoulders relaxing and breaths coming easier. Still, something just felt _off,_ and he could not tell if it was because of the alien weight of the pistol in his hands or the lewd comments of the other soldiers.

Roy grit his teeth as he reloaded. He wasn’t sure _why_ their comments bothered him like this. But something about their remarks dug through his chest and took root in his stomach. He had heard worse on the front and here at Eastern Command. But this, _this -_

_This pretty little thing. She can get her claws in me any time. Catch her alone and show her what a good time looks like._

_Get her away from that adjutant of hers._

Which was ridiculous, Roy thought as he reloaded. Petty and childish. He was not hers. And she was not _his._ They were each their own people. They were colleagues, partners, perhaps at last friends. Riza could agree to any date any of these brutes offered.

He shot. _Lieutenant colonel,_ Roy corrected internally. The _lieutenant colonel_ could accept a date from any one of these crude, arrogant, disrespectful soldiers she wanted.

_Of course, Roy,_ he heard an amalgamation of his sisters tease in his head. _You’re very disconnected from this. Very clinical. Very professional._

Roy narrowed his eyes, quelling the maelstrom of images in his head as he focused on the task in front of him. Because he could not think about Riza sitting across a fire from him under a star-lit sky, a bottle of wine at her lips. Riza dozing with her head against a train car window, her hair burnished gold in the afternoon sun. Riza holding his hand, coaching him through another panic attack. Riza laying on a safe house cot, the full plane of her back exposed, scarlet ink staining her skin, tracing down the slope of her spine and stopping in the curve of her lower back just above the waistband of her pants. Riza laughing at him across his aunt’s bar, licking the last traces of lemon juice off of her wrist as she went to wash up for her shift. Riza smiling wide and dangerous as she stood up for his sister. Riza hovering over her desk, lost in thought. Riza standing on a rooftop with him, screaming up at the sky, turning to him eventually with her hair plastered to her forehead as she shivered, teeth chattering from cold and relief, her lips blue and for a moment Roy wondered what it would have been like to kiss them.

No, those were not thoughts Roy was allowed to entertain. With every bullet he imagined he was forcibly shunting each memory out, stuffing them into a box that he locked tight and shoved into the recesses of his mind. Adjutants did not get to have thoughts like these about their superior officers. He was pretty sure friends didn’t, either.

Roy finished this practice with twenty bullet holes in the head, twenty in the torso. He inhaled, breathing deeply. He felt steadier in that moment than he had in months. Calmer, more collected. Focused.

Emptier, too, but Roy supposed that was the trade-off. He would take it.

Riza approached him for shooting lessons a few weeks after his little pissing contest at the gun range. Fortunately, it seemed that none of the soldiers Roy had scared straight to respecting women/superior officers had shared what happened, so at least he got off relatively scott-free there.

Roy blinked owlishly up at Riza, his eyes adjusting to staring at something that wasn’t a foot from his face. Still another drawback of the constant deluge of paperwork was that it was going to ruin his sniper’s eyes. “I’m sorry?”

“I was wondering if you would teach me to shoot,” Riza repeated, her hands clenched behind her back, “If you ever have a free moment, or are so inclined. I trust you as my bodyguard, of course. But in the event we were separated, incapacitated, or something happened to my gloves, I thought it would be a good idea to brush up on my skills.”

“Oh,” Roy said. “No, I - that is, of course, lieutenant colonel. I’ve had the same thoughts myself. I would be happy to help. I was planning to go to the gun range after work today. Would you like to join me?”

Riza nodded, looking oddly relieved. “Yes. Let me know when you’re ready.”

She returned to her desk to finish her paperwork. Thus far, the only good part of this day was that they were working on _their_ paperwork and no one else’s. But now, at least, Roy might be of more use than the glorified paper-pusher and delivery cart he had been for the past several weeks.

They worked into the late afternoon, as usual. The seasons were changing, and as the evening went on the ancient radiator in the corner rattled to life. Its thunderous, rattling hum acted as a white noise machine to their monotonous work. Roy caught himself almost nodding off over his paperwork multiple times. Finally, at half-past six, Riza set down her pen and announced that she was done, so they locked up their office for the night and retreated downstairs to the shooting gallery.

As they were there nearly two hours past the end of the workday, they had the full range to themselves. Roy had his own pistol now - a standard M1911 semi-automatic, generally standard-issue for the military, but it was his and his alone. He had a second, slightly smaller model that he kept in a shoulder holster that would work well enough for Riza’s first time shooting. Perhaps after some lessons they could find one that she picked herself. Call him a gun snob, but Roy did not much care for the military’s standard-issue firearms. A gun should not be handed in and rented out. It should belong to one person and one alone, serve as their partner and protection in battle.

Also, the stippling on the standard-issue weapons was always weirdly _sticky,_ and Roy was _not_ tolerating that.

“You must have taken some shooting lessons at the start of the war,” Roy started as he handed Riza the smaller pistol. “Show me what you remember and we’ll build from there.”

Riza’s only answer was a short nod. Roy should not have been surprised to see that she remembered more than he anticipated. She demonstrated how to strip the gun and put it back together again, removing the safety and firing a few test shots at their target. They all hit the target, at least: one in the shoulder, the second clipping the ear, the third hitting the paper but missing the human-shaped outline altogether. Riza frowned at her work.

“Hm,” Roy mused. “It’s not a bad start, especially since you don’t shoot often.”

“I haven’t shot since training,” Riza confessed. She brushed her bangs back. “I know I shouldn’t be frustrated, but…” _But I’m a perfectionist,_ Roy heard her finish in his head.

“It’s alright,” Roy said. “That's what I’m here for. After all, the only way to get better is practice. But there are some ways to improve your form, which should make things a bit easier.”

“Oh?” Riza asked.

“Yes,” Roy said. He stood beside her and raised his own pistol, indicating for her to mirror him. “Feet planted, shoulder-width apart. Back straight. Eyes on the target, not the gun. Arms braced, elbows not locked. Yes, perfect, keep your feet just like that. No, your shoulders aren’t squared -”

“This is how I stand,” Riza said. “And I’ve been told I have excellent posture -”

“Impeccable your posture may be, but that is not quite the same thing,” Roy said.

“Just adjust me, then,” Riza said.

Roy blinked, half the thoughts in his mind tumbling to a screeching halt. “I. What?”

Riza sent him a look. “Clearly I’m not quite getting it here. Would you mind just adjusting me until my stance is correct?”

Roy should have said no. He should have said that the stance was a foundation, and she could adjust it as needed to be most comfortable. He should have said that he was maybe not the best teacher, because so much of his skill with the gun was intrinsic, unlike the decades of study she put into her alchemy.

But Roy was a fool, so he only said, “Sure.”

His voice was mercifully even. He stepped closer to her, distantly observing that she smelled like ink and woodsmoke. He gently took her shoulder in one hand, pressed the palm of his other hand to her spine until her shoulders shifted back. Then he applied light pressure to her elbows, pulling them from their hyperextended, locked position. Then, trying not to swallow, he put his fingertips on the curve of her hips.

“You want to be square with your target,” Roy explained, his voice mercifully even. The fabric of her uniform was warm under his fingers. He dropped his hands like she was burning him. “Now try again.”

Riza emptied the clip. One shot to the shoulder again, two to the torso. She beamed, half-turning back and meeting his gaze. “That was better!”

Roy nodded and felt like his heart was in his throat. “Yeah, it was.”

He stepped away to practice in his own stall. For the rest of the evening, the only sounds interspersing their companionable silence was the cracking sound of their gunshots.

~

Eventually - _finally_ \- they caught a break.

It was a blustery October afternoon, one of the last fine days of autumn before the rain and chill truly settled in. Roy finished his rounds collecting paperwork and returned to their office to sort them. Riza glanced up with a tired, wan sort of smile when he entered, one he returned with a wry roll of his eyes. The coffee maker they had brought in burbled cheerfully in the corner, atop an ancient gray-green filing cabinet.

Roy was flipping through these stacks of papers, arranging the folders into stacks for the lieutenant colonel and for himself. The first half of the pile offered nothing unusual: reimbursements, mileage reports, expense reports...a file with the word _**CONFIDENTIAL**_ stamped over the front in enormous letters.

Roy lifted an eyebrow. This was interesting.

“Lieutenant Colonel,” Roy said, getting her attention. She perked her head up, both brows rising when she saw the cover of the file.

“Where did you get that?” Riza asked. She stood up to approach him. He handed the file to her and she took it in both hands, her brow furrowed thoughtfully.

“It was in the stack,” Roy explained. “Came up when I was sorting the work.”

“Hm,” Riza hummed. “Which office did you get this from?”

“Colonel McCany,” Roy said. Riza’s brows went a fraction of an inch higher in thought. Roy could tell her mind was going a mile a minute. He let out a sigh. “Do you want me to return it?”

“Return it?” Riza repeated. “No, not at all.” She lifted the file in one hand, waved it with a tiny smirk on her lips. “This file was given to us by the office of Colonel McCany. Judging by the confidentiality seal, these are the case notes of an active investigation. The esteemed Colonel McCany has seen fit to delegate this important task to our office. We can only follow through.”

Roy caught on to her train of thought: by the ridiculous rules that their hazing superiors had written, they had just handed the lieutenant colonel and her subordinate a real, important task. Now they had their chance to do real work, to prove themselves capable of more than signing papers and sitting in on meetings.

As more than war heroes, war criminals. More than killers.

“We’ll get to those files tomorrow,” Riza instructed, a brilliant, calculating gleam in her eyes. “For now, we have an investigation to begin. To the whiteboard.”

She flipped open the folder’s cover and started reading, almost too quickly for Roy to listen _and_ write legibly. “When: sixteenth of September. What: warehouse fire, located in the thirteen-hundred block area around Samson Street.”

“That’s in the factory district,” Roy noted, jotting that fact down beneath the location. Riza went on:

“The narrative here is that the night foreman, one Hermann Klaur, called in a fire at three o’clock in the morning. The fire brigade arrived at three-ten a.m. to find half of the warehouse alight. They tried to put out the fire, et cetera, et cetera, but were unable to. The file actually says ‘et cetera,’” Riza pointed out, sounding a mix of amused and disgusted. Roy chortled. “That is more or less it. The paperwork is shoddy at best and lazy at worst. The official finding along the bottom of this is that the fire was an accident, but…”

“...The paperwork is incomplete, the investigation is nonexistent, there are no eyewitness accounts or corroboration, therefore the _finding_ is unsupported, and the ‘confidential’ label is oddly placed on a file for such an innocuous event,” Roy rattled off his thoughts aloud. He turned back to the lieutenant colonel to see her staring up at him.

Then she grinned, her eyes alight and clever and _alive._ She looked thrilled at having something, anything to do, and Roy knew that he and Riza were both thinking that there was something _off_ about this entire thing. Someone did not want anyone looking deeper into this fire. “My thoughts exactly, Warrant Officer.”

Roy capped his marker. “What shall we do first, then?”

Riza thought for a few moments. Then she stood, crossing to the coat rack to pick up her uniform jacket and slinging it over her shoulders. She dug into the pockets and pulled out her alchemist gloves, sliding the supple white leather over her fingers.

“I have several questions about how this fire started that the paperwork does not answer for me. And I like to think I know a few things about fire.” Riza buttoned her coat to her chin. “Let’s check out this warehouse. Shall we, Warrant Officer?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: riza and roy have a mystery to solve!
> 
> please leave a kudos/comment! thank you so much for reading!!
> 
> as always, you can reach me on tumblr at notantherwritingblog.tumblr.com. feel free to hmu!!


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